The doges of Venice

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The doges of Venice,

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THE DOGES OF VENICE

BY THE SAME AUTHOR

Famous Ladies of the English Court
The Lover of Queen Elizabeth
Women of the Church of England
The Mystic Bride— Catherine of Siena

THE FISHERMAN BRINGING THE RING OF ST. MARK TO 'DOGE
BARTOLOMEO GRADENIGO

FROM THK PAINTING HY P. IIOUDONE, IN THE ACCADEMIA DI BELLE ARTI, VEN'ICE

THE
DOGES OF VENICE

BY

Mrs. AUBREY RICHARDSON

WITH SIXTBEN ILLUSTRATIONS

METHUEN & CO. LTD.
36 ESSEX STREET W.C.
LONDO N

First Published in igi4

PREFACE

THE wells are deep and bubble over into many
cisterns — Italian, German, French, and English —
from which life-tales of the Doges of Venice may be
drawn.

I have dipped into the sources of Dandolo, Sanudo,
Navagero and their like, as edited by Muratori, and into the
Calendar of State Papers, Venetian Series, the latest volumes
of which (in particular vol. xvii.) contain so much of the ducal
story that is valuable and as yet untapped by English writers.
From the works of Romanin and Molmenti, who by virtue
of their erudition and discernment are indeed " authorities,"
I have also largely drawn. An English historian of Venice
of somewhat ponderous method, considers Romanin " dry."
To me, his Stona Documentaia di Venezia is both flowing and
pellucid. Neither his style nor his facts seem arid ; while
Molmenti's Venezia Nella Vita Privata, and his La Dogaressa
Di Venezia are perfect reservoirs of sparkling incident and
inspiring character.

With gratitude I have bailed from the flood of the thought-
ful narrative and collated documents of Romanin, to fill the
little channel of my Life-tales of the Doges of Venice.

Contributory streams from Hazlitt's Venetian Republic,
from Hodgson's Early History of Venice and his Venice in the
Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries, from Mrs. Ohphant's
Makers and Ruskin's Stones, have also yielded informations
and suggestions, for which I own a great indebtedness.

vi THE DOGES OF VENICE

This book of mine is the first to tell the stories of the
hundred and twenty Doges of Venice consecutively and in full
series. I claim, therefore, that it needed to be written and
hope withal that it may be read with some part of the interest
and fascination with which the tales retold in it have been
perused by me.

JERUSHA D. RICHARDSON

London, March 1914

CONTENTS

CHAP.

I. Heralds in the Dawn (700-809)
II. Wooers of the Adriatic (809-960)

III. Downfall of a Dynasty (960-991)

IV. The Adriatic Won (991-1085) .
V. The Doges of the Crusades (1085-1173)

VI. Rulers of Sea and Land (i 173-1205)

VII. Masterful Minds and Striking Personalities
(120S-1275) .....

VIII. Reformation and Conspiracy (1280-1311)

IX. Watch-dogs and Hounds of War (1311-1354)

X. Tragedy in the Palace (1354-1365) .

XI. Patriots, Purists and Profligates (i365-i)'4)

XII. Peace and War in Complement (1414-1457)

XIII. Worthies and a Kingly Patriot (1457-1521

XIV. " Prince Charming " and " The Hero of Lepanto '

(1522-1578)

XV. Theology and a Woman of Wiles (1578-1605)
XVI. Diplomacy and a Lady of Quality (1605-1624)

XVII. Resistance to Reform and the Candiot War (1624-

i6S9)

XVIII. The Glory of the Setting Sun (1667-1694)
XIX. The Aftermath (1694-1779)
XX. The Night of Doom (1779-1797)

Index .....

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

The Fisherman bringing the Ring of St. Mark to Doge

Bartolomeo Gradenigo .... Frontispiece

From the Painting by P. Bordone in the Accademia di Belle Arti,
Venice. Photo, Brogi

FACING page;

PlETRO OrSEOLO I. ...... 38

From a Painting in the Palazzo Ducale, Venice. Photo, Anderson

VlTALE MiCHIELI II. AND SebASTIANO ZiANI . . -7^

From a Painting in the Palazzo Ducale, Venice. Photo, Anderson

Andrea Dandolo and the Veiled Place among the Ducal

Portraits for Marino Faliero .... i66
From a Painting in the Palazzo Ducale, Venice. Photo, Anderson

MicHELE Steno . . . . . . -194

From a Painting in the Palazzo Ducale, Venice. Photo, Anderson

Francesco Foscari ...... 208

From a Bust in the Museo Archeologico, Venice. Photoi Anderson

NicOLO Tron ....... 234

From a Painting in the Palazzo Ducale, Venice. Photo, Anderson

Monument to Pietro Mocenigo in SS. Giovanni e Paolo,

Venice ........ 236

Photo, Alinari

Giovanni Mocenigo . . . . • -238

From the Painting by Bellini in the Museo Correr, Venice. Photo,
Anderson

Antonio Grimani . . . . • • • 248

From the Painting by Titian in the Morosini Gallery, Venice. Photo,

Naya

Antonio Grimani adoring Faith, with St. Mark and Lion 250
From the Painting by Titian in the Palazzo Ducale, Florence.
Photo, Alinari

X THE DOGES OF VENICE

PACmO PACE

A Doge of the Venetian Republic .... 256
From the Painting by Titian in the Vatican, Rome. Photo, Anderson

Sebastiano Veniero ...... 264

From the Painting by Tintoretto in the Uffizi, Florence. Photo,
Brogi

Marino Grimani ....... 274

From the Painting by Tintoretto in the Palazzo Ducale, Venice.
Photo, Anderson

Francesco Morosini ...... 340

From the Painting by Ludovico Dorigny in the Palazzo Ducale,
Venice. Photo, Anderson

* Paolo Renier ....... 370

From the Painting by Gerolamo Prepiani in the Palazzo Ducale,
Venice. Photo, Anderson

THE DOGES OF VENICE

THE DOGES OF VENICE

CHAPTER I
HERALDS IN THE DAWN

A.D. 700 TO 809

IT was the scourging of Italy by Attila that first set flowing
from out her northern fastnesses the rivulets of thrifty,
enterprising and craity inhabitants which gaining vol-
ume, as in course of time invasions of the Huns were followed
by encroachments of the Lombards, made at last many delta
settlements. Of these, the linked isles of Venice came to the
greatest consequence and fame.

In a period of remote antiquity, the province to be known
as Venetia had been overspread by a people called Venedi —
probably the Sclavonic Wends — who, grafted on pure Latin
stock, grew into a race of mental and physical hardihood,
that needed only a goad of further exile to make it put forth
its full strength. When the prick of the final excursion came,
the Venetians removed in families and groups from the wealthy
cities and fertile districts of the mainland, to the barren shores
of the lagoons at the head of the Adriatic Sea.

These shores had long been sparsely peopled by fisher-folk,
who shared a rude communal life. But when Aquileia, Altino,
Padua, Asolo, Concordia and other ancient strongholds, of
which the lagoon habitations were already in some sort colonies,
poured into the swamps a rich life-stock, there grew up
quickly the notable people to whose "maritime tribunes"
Cassiodorus the Goth (time of Theodoric the Great) wrote a
letter in which he appealed to the " famous Venetians," as

2 THE DOGES OF VENICE

possessors of numerous ships, to help in the transport of oil
and wine from Istria to Ravenna. ^The exiles had had full
opportunity to develop into an organized state, between the
time of Attila (fifth century) and the day of Cassiodorus (sixth).
The path of progress was still unblocked between the sixth and
eighth centuries. Invading armies kept to the fair roads and
smiling plains that lay on the way to Rome. There was no
divergence to the miserable marsh-lands. The hard-sought
island peace remained inviolate.

Even before the beginning of the eighth century, the lagoon
populations had so multiplied in numbers and grown in prowess,
seamanship and mercantile activity, that they needed a more
powerful authority than a group of Tribunes to keep quiet and
deal justice among themselves, as well as to parley with
neighbouring Dukes and Exarchs and conquering Kings. The
Tribunes may have been appointed by the government at
Constantinople and merely accepted by the " famous Vene-
tians " ; or they may have been, as many historians believe,
locally elected by the doughty colonists. In any case, they
were the captains of the fighting-men of the clustered yet dis-
persed settlements, and they recognized one Master of the
Soldiers, who was supreme in his own office. This of&ce,
however, was strictly military.

So when the time came for the men of Venice to feel, as
they said, that it would be " more honourable to be under a
Dulce (Doxe) than under Tribunes," they acclaimed in the
higher rank a leader presented to them at Heraclea by
Christopher, the Patriarch of Grado.

We are informed of the special tasks for which Pauluccio
Anafesto was created the first Doge of Venice about the year
700, by the agreement entered into between him and the Lom-
bard King whose capital was at Pavia. This treaty fixed the
boundaries between Lombard and Heraclean (or Venetian)
dominions and stipulated that the Venetians should be allowed
to trade throughout the Lombard Kingdom, that the Lombards
should not molest the cattle and horses on the pastures of the
lagoon islands, and that the islanders should have the right, for
an annual payment, of cutting timber in certain woods of the
mainland.

HERALDS IN THE DAWN 3

After Anafesto came Marcello Tagliano. He had been
Master of the Soldiers under the first Doge, and his signature
was appended with Anafesto's to the treaty with the Lombards.
The third Doge was Orleo Orso, of whom it may be sur-
mised that he espoused the Byzantine cause when disputes
arose between Leo, the Eastern Emperor, and Gregory, the
Western Pope, concerning the Imperial decree forbidding the
use of images in churches. It is doubtful, however, whether
it was this Doge, or a subsequent Master of Soldiers, during a
five years' interregnum (737-742), who sent a fleet to assist the
Emperor's men in re-taking Ravenna and provided an asylum
for the Greek Exarch when King Liutprand the Lombard,
professing zeal for images and image-worship; took the cities
of Rimini, Pesaro, Fano, Singaglia and Ancona, on his way to
a siege of Ravenna.

The special services which Orso rendered to the Imperial
government may have consisted only in coming to the assist-
ance of the Greeks when the Lombards threatened the
security and freedom of Venice, but he was certainly dignified
in return for them by the title of Hypatos or Consul. Doge
Orso's repute in Venetian story is that of a ready fighter and
wary diplomatist who preferred to pay homage to the distant
head of an ill-governed Empire, rather than to be a liege of
a nearer and more aggressive power. It is recorded also that
Orso gained many political liberties and commercial advan-
tages for his people. A herald in the dawn, his figure stands
veiled in mists of fancy and tradition, but a sense of the Im-
perial destiny of Venice may be descried in him. He associ-
ated- his son with himself in his rule and dreamed maybe of
regal rank for his successors. His reign came to a troublous
end. He, himself, was violently assaulted and slain by mal-
contents of Equilo, now Jesolo. The growing Tribunates —
for the Tribunes exercised their functions in their districts, as
before the nomination of a Doge — had become jealous of the
dominance of Heraclea. In particular, the inhabitants of
Equilo were envious of Heraclea's renown of great antiquity.

It became a democratic grievance that the privilege of
Dogeship had been confined to aristocrats of Heraclea. Fights
and massacres grew common. The disputes made it impossible

4 THE DOGES OF VENICE

for the islanders to agree upon another Doge. Deodato
Orso, son of Orleo, was banished, and a Master of the Soldiers,
to whose military duties some judicial functions were added,
was again constituted the Chief Officer of the State. His
office was a yearly one. The Doges had been chosen for life.

Exile did not stultify Deodato's hereditary aptitude for
rule. Before the revival of the Dogeship, he was recalled and
made a Master of the Soldiers. And when to defy Lombard
menaces, appease island jealousies and foster commercial and
political relations with Constantinople, the seat of the Venetian
government was removed from Heraclea to Malamocco on the
Lido, at a mouth of the river Brenta, which ran direct to that
port from Padua, and with a harbour readily accessible from the
east, it was Deodato Orso who was acclaimed the reinstated
Doge — Orso ii.

Imperially-minded like his father, he recognized that the
islands must be fortified, and breaches in the natural and chief
defences of lagoon and morass stoutly supplied with forts.
But neither wisdom nor practicality could save him from
attacks of the political faction of Equilo. That he was by
birth an Heraclean, seems to have been his only crime. He
planned the defence of Venice as a whole — the Venice that
stretched from Grado in the north, skirting Treviso and Padua
on the Una firma, and embracing the islands and lidi of the
lagoons, as far as Chioggia, Brondolo and the mouth of the
Adige river on the south.

In pursuit of this plan, he was one day surveying the
works at Brondolo, an important point for the protection of
Malamocco and the lagoons, when he was seized upon by Galla
Gaulo of Equilo and, as some authorities say, assassinated ; as
others, blinded and deposed.

Galla Gaulo of Equilo followed up his attack on Deodato
by making himself master of Malamocco, and there proclaiming
himself the Doge. His usurped authority lasted only a year and
he suffered the same fate he had meted to his predecessor.

To him succeeded by more legal processes Domenico
MoNENGARio of Malamocco, who was elected rather to appease
the vanity and ambitions of the Malamoccans than for any
claim of personality. This method did not procure a better

HERALDS IN THE DAWN 5

government. Ferocious, stubborn and sensual, although with
the courage of his passions, Domenico needed the brake upon
his impulses which the Venetians thought to supply by appoint-
ing two of the Tribunes as assistants and advisers of his ofl&ce.
Whether they aided him in administration or not, they proved
but a light curb on his furies and cruelties. He, too, was
blinded and deposed, a.d. 764.

After Domenico, the pendulum of popular choice swung
back. A Doge was acclaimed for that he was a just, temperate,
politic and religious man, and the reign of Maurizio Galbaio
proved a good reign. It must be admitted, however, that he
reigned at what, for Venite, was a good time.

While Deodato had yet been at the head of affairs, a great
change, never to be without its consequence in the stories of the
Doges of Venice, had taken place in the policy of Rome. This
change lay in the casting off by the Roman Pontiff of the
dominion of the Eastern Emperor and his Exarch, and in the
asking for succour for the Holy See, of a young but rising
world-power, the power of the Franks.

The fame of one who had gained on a field between Tours
and Poictiers, the most signal victory ever won for Christen-
dom against Mahommedanism, was at this time sounding
throughout Europe. ChsLrles Martel was appealed to, but his
day had run its course. His son Pepin answered the Pope's
caJl. During the Dogeship of Deodato, the Frankish Prince
drove Astolphus the Lombard out of Ravenna and received
the title of " Patrician of Rome." A little later, the Holy
Father found a way of sanctioning the' deposition of the roi
faineant of France, and of approving the elevation to all regal
titles and honours, of Pepin le Bref.

Before this seal was set on the authority of the Franks, it
had become a burning question in Venice whether friendship
with a western or an eastern overlord were the more desir-
able. Old trade and social connexions as well as present
needs of commerce and art, bound the Venetians in strands
of sentiment and interest to their Byzantine Suzerain. Yet
it was to be seen by all with«yes that the Frank was a neigh-
bour whose enmity, should it be roused, would prove more
formidable than that of the supplanted Lombard. The f ounda-

6 THE DOGES OF VENICE

tions of the Empire that so quickly consoUdated and extended
under the son of the Uttle Pepin, were being laid. The lull in
Venetian feuds and strifes that came in the time of good Doge
Maurizio, came, therefore, not wholly of his wisdom, but partly
because contests between the Lombards and the Franks re-
moved the theatre of strife from the eastern coasts to the
northern and Roman districts of Italy. During the lull, the
Doge became aware that the population of the lagoon cities
had so greatly increased that a new Bishop was needed.
Olivolo, twin island with Rivoalto, was designated as the
place for the prelate's enthronization. Dorsoduro and Luprio,
as well as Rivoalto and Ohvolo (now Rialto and Castello), were
included in this see, and the Church of St. Peter became the
Cathedral of Venice. The name of the first Bishop of Olivolo
was Obelerius. He was a son of a Tribune of Malamocco.

Ecclesiastical affairs of another nature occupied Doge
Giovanni Galbaio, son of good Maurizio. Giovanni had been
associated with his father in the government, and, upon his
own succession, took his son, another Maurizio, as his colleague
in the Dogeship. Both Giovanni and the younger Maurizio
were conservative in their deferences to Constantinople. They
opposed an alliance with the Franks which was advocated by
the Patriarch of Grado, who had been moved to take his stand
by the rumours of a great fleet being built by Pepin, the son of
Charlemagne, at Ravenna. Perhaps if the Patriarch of Grado's
counsels had been heeded, the builder of that fleet had never
turned his arms on the Venetians, as he shortly did. However
that may be, the Doges Giovanni and Maurizio issued a
counterblast to the Prankish party by appointing to the
See of Olivolo a young Greek, one Christopher, a boy of sixteen.
The Patriarch retaliated by refusing to consecrate the stripling
and Doge Maurizio went quickly with a fleet to Grado, to punish
him in his own place. There was a fight in the streets and
the Patriarch was captured. It was not only because of his
objection to the Greek appointment that the ducal revenge
was taken. Christopher may have been nominated in order
to provoke the Archbishop. The time had come, in the esti-
mation of the Galbaii, for a repulse of assaults made upon
their popularity because of their Byzantine devotion. So

HERALDS IN THE DAWN 7

with ruthless vengeance, the already wounded Archbishop
was cast down from a high tower of his palace. In cold blood
the Doge ordered this terrible execution, but the flood was
hot that spread upon the pavement where the Patriarch's
body fell. It so scalded and dyed the place, that there re-
mained on the stones for many and many a generation a red
brand of the infamy of the son and grandson of good Doge
Maurizio. Such indications of martyrdom do not quickly pale
when diligence and design work for the attraction of pilgrims
and devotees.

But a sorry doom faUs on tyrants who belabour spokes-
men of disaffection, without seeking to remove the reasons
of their contempts. The murder of the Archbishop brought
the cause he led into greater prominence, and created sym-
pathy where before there had been indifference.

The party for the Franks grew in importance. The
antagonism to the Doges and their Greek favourites became
violent. It is true that the Father-Doge joined his son in
Grado, and countenanced the election there of Fortunatus,
a nephew of the martyr, to succeed his uncle. These con-
ciliatory steps came tardily, and could neither save the homi-
cides from popular anger, nor protect them from prelatical
indignation. Whether by intention or no, the appointment
of Fortunatus was unpopular. He could not convert those
of his flock whom business considerations held to the Greek
heresies. A party of Venetians and Greeks rose against him,
and he appealed to the Pontiff and to Charlemagne for venge-
ance. Pope Leo iii wrote a letter to the Monarch, requesting
his good offices for one who had been driven into exile by the
persecutions of the Greeks and the Venetians. Fortunatus
presented this letter to Charlemagne, then holding court in
Franconia. It is an old surmise that the Archbishop was
accompanied on his mission by the true leader of the Frankish
party, Obelerio degli Antenori, who obtained then and
there the hand of a daughter of Charlemagne for his wife,
together with promises of help in his designs on the ducal
office.

The truth seems to be that Fortunatus went alone to
Franconia, while Obelerio, who had been banished from the

8 THE DOGES OF VENICE

Venetian dominion, repaired with some expelled followers
to Treviso. Either at this time or later, he undoubtedly
married a Prankish woman who was the first Dogaressa
to play an important part in Venetian story, but there is no
proof that she was one of the great Charles's many daughters,
legitimate or illegitimate. Her influence over her husband
has always been accounted sinister, and it was believed that
it was by her persuasions that he sold his country to the
western Potentate. Her husband, however, had wiles enough
without incitements from her. His conspiracies against the
Galbaii grew more determinate. He and his coadjutors in
their secure retreat, just across the border of the mainland in
Frankish territory, skilfuUy fomented the disturbances which
the shameful lives, more than the mistaken policies, of the
Doges provoked. The day of destiny came at last. A popular
outburst, more tumultuous than any preceding one, scared
the Galbaii into flight. Giovanni went to Mantua ; Maurizio
to an undefined spot in Francia.

Then was the hour for the passing of a Doge proclaimed
in Treviso to the seat of government in Malamocco. Once
in the long-coveted position, Obelerio's craft and faithlessness
were revealed. Almost his first act was to call his brother
Beato — of known Greek sympathies — to share the throne
with him. This was good in so far as it was conciliatory. It
was bad in that it was a denial of a faith in the man who had
battled for the Western alliance and the Roman devotion,
as for a political good and a religious blessing that justified
revolt against duly appointed rulers. It was bad too, because
of its re-association of the family principle with the Dogeship.
Not by elevation to hereditary royalty, but by election for
his sole life, had the wise old Pauluccio Anafesto come by his
office, and he at least had not assumed that it could be other-
wise. Yet Obelerio's division of his honours with his brother,
as old Maurizio's sharing of them with his son, was in itself a
pardonable act, and might have been accounted a purely
htiman one, had it not been for the character of the man
which other deeds and policies revealed. Less human, if at once
weaker and more daring, was Obelerio's treatment of Fortu-
natus. Far from recalling the Archbishop, or advancing

HERALDS IN THE DAWN 9

his authority in his province, it was an early concern of
Obelerio, with Beato already at his side, to summon to a
place where strife had been loudest and most energetic—" the
Lido of the pine-woods "—a council of the island tribunes.
In that council he appropriated to himself all jurisdiction
over the lands between Heraclea and Grado which had until
then been vested in the Patriarch. This step was imme-
diately followed by the complete destruction of Heraclea.
It must be remembered that the Galbaii were Heracleans
by birth, although they reigned at Malamocco. The degli
Antenori, however, had been Malamoccans for generations.
So desolate did Obelerio render the old capital, that its remain-
ing inhabitants were forced to remove in small groups to
Malamocco, Torcello and Rialto. In driving out the remnant
of the population, the Doge certainly overturned a hotbed
of Greek sympathizers and good lieges of Byzantium. Yet
from all accounts of the affair, he seems to have carried
it out in a vindictive, if not treacherous manner. It was the
same with his appropriation of the lands of the Archiepiscopate
of Grado. Provident and necessary as the appropriation
may have been politically, it was personally a deed of deception
and ingratitude. Fortunatus had a right to better treatment
from the bandit he had helped to a throne.

Unlike the destruction of Heraclea, the seizure of the Grado
Church properties had been a move in the direction of Greek
methods of government. At Constantinople, the Pope
of the Eastern Church was little more than an officer of
the Emperor's court ; a minister of his will concerning the
religion of his people. At Rome, the pontiff was raising his
head among the princes of the earth. Pepin had crowned
a repetition and an extension of his former victories over
Ravenna and other cities and districts of the eastern co£ist
of Italy, with the " donation " of lands to Leo in which laid
the foTindations of the temporal power of the Popes. Obelerio
may have been influenced by his brother when he seized the
possessions of the Archbishopric. They certainly shared
the spoils of the appropriation, although Beato took no
active part in the destruction of Heraclea. Reasons of
state may have induced Obelerio to put himself right with

10 THE DOGES OF VENICE

the Greek party. These reasons, it would appear, were
recognized by Charlemagne, or perhaps Obelerio kept the
Monarch privately assured, through the Dogaressa, that he
was still at heart in the interests of the West. It had been
the Western Emperor's great wish to put down the slave-
trade in Venice as elsewhere, but considerations of Greek
business practices made the time-serving Obelerio fearful of
allowing Fortunatus, who had a commission from Charlemagne
to repress the un-Christian, but very profitable traffic, to come
back to Grado. Nevertheless, some collusion of the Arch-
bishop while in Istria helped Obelerio in a predatory expedi-
tion he made in Dalmatia ; creating panic as he went and, as
it would seem, subduilig the country at last to recognition
at Zara of a Doge of Venetian appointment. Whatever the
exact itinerary and result of Obelerio's expedition, it repre-
sented an act of aggression of the Western on the Eastern
Empire. Dalmatia had long been under the sway of Con-
stantinople. Yet we find the Doge-brethren of Venice going
with a Doge of Zara to the Court of Charlemagne in the
year 886, doing homage to that Monarch, and receiving from
him certain directions concerning the conduct of their own
affairs and those of their respective countries.

This proceeding was not approved of at the Court on the
Bosphorus. Beato had taken part in it, and his association
with the anti-Greek manoeuvre, as well as the series of
dramatic events that were the outcome of the pilgrimage of
the three Doges to Aix-la-Chapelle, reveal to us very pictur-
esquely the position of Venice at this period and for some time
after. In command of the northern shores of the Adriatic,
with a natural monopoly of the carrying trade between the
old world and the new, between the languishing and luxuriantly
rich and artistic kingdoms of the East and the growing, but
as yet ill-supplied and uncultivated peoples of the West, Venice
was useful to both east and west, as a buffer and a market-place^
Nay more, Venice with her sturdy island inhabitants, her
crafty and resourceful politicians, and the rising passion of her
people for communal development and freedom, was a Republic
so constructed by nature and art, by the accidents of circum-
stance and geographical position, that in all final resorts it was

HERALDS IN THE DAWN ii

easier and more profitable for both world-powers to maintain
Venice free, than to hold her bound.

But the independence of the Venetians was one matter,
their dominance of Dalmatia quite another.

Within a year from the foregathering of the three Doges
and Charlemagne, a Greek fleet sailed up the Adriatic, and the
array of galleys was sufficiently imposing to strengthen the
loyalty of all Venetians who genuinely preferred the almost
nominal suzerainty of the East to the threatening over-lordship
of the West, but whose knees failed them for fear, in the
presence of their Frank-supported and Frank-upholding
Doges. The courage of Beato too, which had perhaps been
dashed by a speU of apparent neglect on the part of the
Eastern Emperor, revived at the sight of the demonstration
in force from Constantinople. Borne on a wave of popular
feeling or personal fear, Obelerio re-assured the Greeks by a
hospitable reception, and it was probably for this that he was
rewarded by the title of Spatharios, and Beato, whom the
Greek commander wisely took back to Constantinople, by that
of Hypatos. About a year later Beato returned to Venice,
and popular approval of his conduct was then so strongly
manifested, that a third brother, Valentino — also in the
Greek interest — was associated in the Dogeship.

Following Beato came another' fleet from the Bosphorus
which, throughout the winter of 808-9, ^^Y moored among the
islands. In the spring, it slipped forth to attack Commachio,
a port at the mouth of the Po, in Frankish bounds.

This attack was not successful. Its only result seems to
have been that of stirring up the anger of Pepin against the
party in Venice that had influenced Obelerio to harbour a
Greek fleet in Venetian waters. It has been supposed that a
later refusal of the Venetians to aid in a projected conquest
of the maritime cities of Dalmatia further infuriated Pepin,
or at least determined him to obtain from the Doge an overt
recognition of his right of lordship over Venice. Be that as
it may, Pepin from Ravenna began a march on Brondolo,
Chioggia and Palestrina, while Frankish armies from the
north and west approached the lagoon strongholds with
devastating steps. Then the wrath of the Venetians, far from

12 THE DOGES OF VENICE

being expended on their own Greek inclinations, was turned
on their Doges, whom they suspected of having secretly invoked
this incursion of King Pepin.

The plan of attack had certainly been encouraged by
mistaken accounts of the warlike condition and political
attitude of the Venetians, given by the still exiled Fortunatus
of Grado.

Descriptions of the end of Obelerio differ. There is an
opinion that both he and Beato were driven from the govern-
ment at this time, and it is variously stated that Obelerio
was deposed and banished ; that he and his foreign wife were
Eissassinated ; that he fled with his spouse to the court of
Charlemagne ; and that he retired to Mantua and was subse-
quently sent to Constantinople, whence he returned years
later to disturb once more the peace of his native state.
The most believable of all the statements is that which affirms
that at this moment of popular suspicion of the patriotism
of the Doges, Beato asserted himself and proved his own
loyalty to Venice and the Grecian friendship, by chasing his
brother Obelerio from his throne and country, and taking with
the still younger Doge Valentino the chief part in the defence
of the Venetian islands and lagoons.

Some treachery in Obelerio seems indeed to have invited
the apparition of Pepin, " King of Italy," at the gate of the
lagoons. Although the southern coast towns of the Venetian
province lay invested in his army's wake, and cities of the
northern sea-belt, like Grado, Caorle and Jesolo, were simul-
taneously seized by other bodies of troops under Frankish
command, Pepin's disposition to parley rather than to fight
before the defences of Malamocco, shows that he came to claim
a heritage rather than to conquer a foe, and that the resistance
to him, though stout, was the, resistance of tenacious holders of
civic liberties.

The story of the siege of Malamocco and the attempt to
assail Rialto, which ended in disaster for the army of Pepin,
has been often told. The part of Doge Beato in the story
is not defined, although it is likely that he conducted the
strategical retreat of the inhabitants from Malamocco to
Rialto, which was the master-move of the defence. Even

HERALDS TN THE DAWN 13

before that retreat, Pepin with his regiments of infantry and
bodies of cavalry " camped on the mainland over against the
ferry to the Venetian islands, in a place called Aeilbole," and
■(vith his small fleet of capacious transports was powerless
against the Venetians, who had " blocked up the passage with
a barricade of ships' yards." From vessels behind these yards
the islanders kept up a fire of arrows and other missiles, which
the position of Pepin prevented him from returning effect-
ively. In vain did the King himself call out to them, " Ye
are under my hand and my providence, since ye came from my
land and my dominions." The Venetians would not yield
to the reminder that as a people they came anciently from
lands now forming part of the domain of the heir of Charle-
magne. They answered him, perhaps by the mouth of Beato,
certainly in words that were an echo of Beato's resolution,
" We will be the servants of the King of the Romans (meaning
the Greek Emperor), and not of thee."

In the end, Pepin forced the obstructed passage and got
across to the island, but only to find that the taunting showers
of arrows and words that had kept him at bay for so long had
been the cover for a surer impediment to his conquest. The
capital had been deserted.

At this point of the narrative enters upon the scene the
famous old woman, solitary remnant of the population Pepin
had hoped to take en masse. With foolish whine that disguised
femininely her feminine subtlety and art, the aged goody offered
to tell the noble Prince all that she knew about everything,
which was that the Doge and all the people had crossed the
lagoon to Rialto, a place she described with cunning as a city
in the midst of the sea. Then, most tremulously, she pro-
fessed her own imbecility, but, as some annahsts tell, suggested,
if she might humbly venture to do so, that the conqueror
should return to the mainland and find a spot inhabited by
her relatives, who would advise King Pepin of a way to reach
Rialto. Another story goes that the crone asked that two
Prankish maidens might accompany her in a boat to Rialto,
where she would find out surreptitiously through her refugee
relations there, the best means of conveying Pepin's troops
thither, since his vessels were of too large draught for the

14 THE DOGES OF VENICE

lagoon. She made her journey and, once in Rialto, related
all the circumstances to the Doge, who, after consultation
with his Council, sent representatives to treat with Pepin, to
whom, in the meantime, relatives of the old woman had gone
with the advice to make a bridge of rafts, upon which men and
horses could be propelled across the shallows to Rialto.

Supposing the legend to have truth for its foundation,
there was much contrivance in leaving the poverina in Mala-
mocco and more in referring the Frank to her relations, whose
advice to him to make bridges of boards bound with ropes,
was a master-stroke of policy. The bridges become a flotilla
in some versions of the story, and there are accounts of the
waiting of the islanders and their Doge for the approach of
Pepin's fleet of rafts across the unmarked waste of the lagoon.
The Venetians' knowledge of the shoals and deeps, currents
and tides of their own waters, was pitted against the ignorance
of the continental invaders. Such knowledge was bound to
prevail against such ignorance. As the rudely made crafts
approached Rialto in disorder, an armed fleet of smart and
serviceable vessels slipped out from behind Castello, and,
sailing on a tide that set from them towards the invaders,
bore down upon such of the clumsy platforms as made any
advance at all, destroying and sinking them in great numbers.
Others foundered in the shoals ; others weakly split asunder
and went down with their loads of men, horses and weapons.
Many persons were drowned; so many, that the canal by
which they entered the lagoon was long called the Canal
of the Orphans.

Then was Beato's opportunity to treat, and there seems
no reason for disbelief of the picturesque tale that Pepin's
request to be allowed to visit the island of wonderful natural
defence, was answered by a progress of the Doge to Malamocco,
where he greeted the King and concluded terms of peace with
him. Beato remained in Malamocco to watch the dispatch
by Pepin of band after band of the troops he now undertook
to send forth from Venetian territory. Then the two rulers
proceeded to the new capital with a stately convoy of the
barks and ships that had accompanied the Doge's vessel on his
outward journey. In the Grand Council, King Pepin was

HERALDS IN THE DAWN 15

made a Noble Tribune and a Gentleman of Venice, and he
confirmed to Beato the independence and other privileges
which had been recogliized as the right of Venetians in the
time of Doge Anafesto. To the domain of legend rather than
of history belong the sayings and doings of King Pepin and
Doge Beato in the new city of Venice. Yet for ages it was a
dear faith of Venetian patriots that from understandings then
arrived at concerning the freedom of the river mouths of the
northern Adriatic, the Sea of Adria first got the name of Gulf
of Venice. It was believed also that at this time the Doge
first assumed the biretta which, by a process of natural de-
velopment, became the jewelled Corno that remained always
the most distinctive emblem of the ducal office. This biretta
was supposed to have been given to Beato by Pepin, King
of Italy, the Western Emperor's son.

Upon the departure of Pepin from Venice, the Doge with
his nobles accompanied him on a vessel of special size and
build — a precursor of the Bucintoro. It is further related
that, on the outskirts of Venetian territory, Beato met face to
face his brother Obelerio, the traitor, who waited for the
news of the spoiling of his country by the Monarch to whom
he had tried to sell it. The fifteenth-century chronicler of
this encounter — Navagero — ^is always more picturesque and
patriotic than exact, and it may or may not have been a fact
that the degli Antenori came face to face at that time and in
that way. In idea, certainly, they confronted each other,
for Obelerio betrayed his trust as ruler of the freedom-loving
Venetians, while Beato remained loyal to the ideal of liberty
he shared with his fellow-countrymen.

CHAPTER II
WOOERS OF THE ADRIATIC

A.D. 809 TO 960

VERY shortly after the departure of King Pepin from
Rialto, Doge Beato degU Antenori either died and
was buried with pomp in the Church of San Teodoro
on the island, or was banished to Zara. Both fates have
been recorded of him. One cannot say which is the true
one. In any case, a Doge of a family more honourable than
the degli Antenori was proclaimed before the year 811.

Agnello Partecipazio had worked with Beato, yet
independently, to disconcert the Franks. From the first, his
plan must have been politically constructive, rather than
strategically defensive. His aim was not only to elude the
dominion of Pepin; he had the design also of establishing
a new capital, and claiming Venice for the Venetians. He
may therefore be accounted the first Doge who truly ruled
from Rialto, even as he was the first to be elected there in
popular arengo, and the first to build a palace on the site of
the present Palazzo Ducale.

A Tribune of Rialto but an Heraclean by birth, the first
of the Partecipazii, surnamed also Badoeri, was as fitted by
race and position, as by character and attainment, to become
the Doge at this crisis. His proceedings salved many provincial
jealousies, for while he fostered the growth of the capital on
the spot indicated by the Finger of God as the one site for
the citadel of Venetian greatness, he caused his native
Heraclea to be rebuilt and to be given the name of Civita Nuova.
In ±)ie scheme of his activities, only Malamocco seems to
have been neglected, but as that town was a stronghold of

x6

WOOERS OF THE ADRIATIC 17

Prankish interest, it was wisdom to neglect it. It was wisdom
also to send his eldest son, Giustiniani, to the Court at
Byzantium on the twofold mission of congratulating the new
Emperor Leo and of ascertaining the exact terms of a recent
treaty between Charlemagne and the late Emperor Nicephorus.
By this compact Venice had been recognized as outside
the domain of western lordship, although owner of many
possessions and privileges in the West.

The restlessness of the turbulent prelate Fortunatus, who
was recalled to his see through the benignity of the new
Doge, but who continued to lead a Frankish party, caused
trouble in the early part of Agnello's reign. A plot which
included in its designs the assassination of the Doge, was
discovered only just in time. The expulsion from his see of
the restored Archbishop seems to have been facilitated by
some treachery of his to his own party. He made over-
tures to the government at Constantinople to which the
new Emperor, Ludovico, objected, and remained for some
time longer a troubler of Western peace.

Yet a man's worst foes are those of his own house and
his own nature. The irrepressible parental instinct, cause of
so much good and so much bad in the Venetian, as in many
another story, led Agnello Partecipazio, as it had led good
Maurizio Baldaio before him, to associate a son with him in
the government. The elder, Giustiniani, being in the East, it
was the younger, Giovanni, who became joint-Doge with
his father; and Giovanni inclined greatly towards a Western
connexion. Although the death of Charlemagne had weakened
the Frankish power, Giovanni was tempted to take the place
of Fortunatus as chief of the party of conspiracy in the State.
His turbulent inclinations remained undiscovered until the
return of Giustiniani. Then the natural jealousy of a senior
brother called upon to give precedence and reverence to a
junior, led that senior, after making some unheeded com-
plaints, to retire from the palace and to go with his wife
Felicia into semi-cloisteral life in a religious house attached
to the Church of San Sever 0. But, whether by suspicions
cast by Giustiniani, or by informations of others, the eyes
of the old Doge were opened at last to see in his colleague-son
2

i8 THE DOGES OF VENICE

a spark of incendiary danger that could not be allowed to
smoulder in state-of&ce. An extinguisher was put upon
Giovanni's hot Francophilism by his banishment to Zara,
whence he escaped to the court of Louis the Pious in France.
His father's insistence drove hira from that asylum, and
forced him at last to retire to Constantinople.

Giustiniani then came forth from his solemn retreat to
share the ducal dignity, and the leisurely beneficence of the
joint rule of his father and himself is proof of passive years
of prosperity in Venice. Very many famous churches and
monasteries were founded in their time ; and among other
relics sent by the Eastern Emperor to Agnello and Giustiniani,
were (so it was piously believed) a fragment of the True Cross
and the body of Zaccharias, father of John the Baptist.
Almost simultaneously the Church and Monastery of San
Lorenzo, the monastery of SS. Ilario and Benedetto and the
convent of San Zaccaria were founded by the Doges and
their kinsmen. To aid the erection of these pious monu-
ments, the iconoclast Emperor Leo sent master-architects
and rich treasures of building and decorative material. But
it was after the elder Doge had been gathered to his fathers,
that there came into the mind of Giustiniani a plan of ex-
ceeding piety which was also a project of political intent.

A call had come to the Venetians from the Emperor
Michael, the Stammerer, to join in a holy war against the
Saracens, who were already overrunning the territories that
had cradled the Christian faith — Syria, Palestine and Egypt —
and already occupying the islands of the Mediterranean. They
had even begun, insidiously as traders, if not ostentatiously
as warriors, to swarm on the Italian mainland. The methods
of repulse the Venetians were asked to adopt were those of
reinforcing a naval expedition against Sicily and of severing
commercial relations with all Mussulmans in the East. The
merchant-fleets from the lagoons were not to put into Moorish
ports nor to interchange commodities with followers of
Mahomet. There were, however, no injtmctions issued
against salvage of Christian relics from the on-rushing flood
of Mahommedanism, and there lay in Egypt some precious
remains of a virtue and a rank not inferior in quality and

WOOERS OF THE ADRIATIC 19

standing to those of the blessed St. Peter and St. Paul at
Rome. If St. Mark could be brought to Rialto, would not
Venice possess a shrine as greatly to be venerated as the
ancient capital of Italy itself could boast ? Yet it was not
to wield a sovereign ecclesiastical power such as the Bishop
of Rome had just begun to exercise, but to proclaim once
and for all the Venetian right to a religious autonomy of the
kind practised by the Western and Eastern Empires, that
Giustiniani, Doge of Venice, connived at the abstraction of
the embalmed corpse of St. Mark from its cere-clothes at
Alexandria.

The tale of how the sweet-smelling mummy was removed
from its sealed vestment and secretly conveyed in a chest,
beneath joints of the pork held in horror of Mussulmans, to the
ship of the adventurers who carried out the design of the
Doge, has been often related. The concern of these pages is
the part taken by Giustiniani in the snthronement on Venetian
ground, in Venetian fancy, ay, and in Venetian hearts, of
the missionary of many wanderings, who had been — so it was
held — founder of the Church of Aquileia, although he had
not consecrated the ancient see by laying his bones there.
No, rather, so the legends told, had the lion-hearted pilgrim
pressed on to the inmost isles of the lagoons and, pausing
on desolate Rialto, had heard a voice from Heaven saying :
" Peace be to thee, Mark ; here shall thy body rest." Was it
not fitting, therefore, that Rialto should possess, itself, and
bestow upon the whole of Venice, a special rank among sacred
cities ? Was it not well that the goveiniment of Doge Gius-
tiniani and his successors throughout the ages, should become
the special concern of a Saint-Evangelist in whose name
all national acts might be undertaken and accomplished ;
aU national desires and plans — as distinct from and dominant
over purely ecclesiastical ones — be sanctified and made
righteous ?

If Doge Giustiniani Partecipazio performed no other
deed whereby he may be accorded fame, this that he did in
causing the reputed body of St. Mark to be brought into the
palace of the Doges, was an act of statecraft and of patriot-
ism that must be celebrated throughout all time. The

20 THE DOGES OF VENICE

home of the head of the Venetian state, which was also the
office of the Executive of the free Venetian people, was holy
spot enough on which to lay great Mark, the companion of St.
Paul and St. Barnabas in their epoch-making mission journey ;
the literary disciple of St. Peter ; the Evangelist of peculiarly
forceful diction and courageous faith. What pride in the
Venetians and in their Doge was there not signified by the
little procession that went forth pompously one day in January
829, to meet the bier on which the holy relic had been brought
with rejoicings from the deck of the little vessel where it had
lain in state throughout a miraculously calm passage of the
Adriatic ! The Grand Piazza was as a planted field , in that
far-distant day ; the ducal palace, a modest dwelling, hard to
re-edify in imagination after centuries of reconstruction in
fact, have stamped the mind of western civilization with an
architectural expression of the glories of the Venetian Doge-
ship which is not easy to blot out. As for the national shrine,
only the chapel of San Teodoro abutting on the garden of the
convent of San Zaccaria, broke the expanse covered long
since by the Church of San Marco.

Not in any detail could Doge Giustiniani hav6 foreseen
the greatness to be, yet in scheme it was undoubtedly in his
mind, as, with his Dogaressa, Felicia, and his brother Giovanni,
recalled from exile, he led the rites that solemnized the bring-
ing of St. Mark to the Palace of the Doges.

Upon his deathbed, Giustiniani made a will constituting
his wife and her sister, Romana, heiresses of his money and
goods, and bequeathing the Dogeship to his brother Giovanni,
who already shared the ducal honours.
, In Doge Giovanni's time, the building of the Church of
St. Mark in its first Byzantine form was begun. The walls
were reared, and the pavements laid above and around the
exposed foundations of San Teodoro's chapel and the scarcely
beaten pathways of San Zaccaria's garden. In Giovanni's
time also the office of Primocerio (Dean) of St. Mark was
created, and the precious, fragrant remains of the Holy Evan-
gelist given into the custody of this dignitary and his chapter
of Procurators, who thenceforward ranked under the Doge
as the highest ecclesiastical and lay functionaries of the state.

WOOERS OF THE ADRIATIC 21

But the days of Doge Giovanni were troublous ones as,
in justice, they had need to be, since he himself had been
such a trouble to the state in his father's reign. The accredited
incursion of Obelerio in 829, was a last effort to rally the
Prankish party and to bring back the capital to Malamocco.
It was, admitting that it took place, put down with a strong
hand; for as an Antenor of Malamocco had devastated
Heraclea, so now a Partecipazio of Heraclea and Rialto
devastated Malamocco. The provocation had been great.
Obelerio was seized and decapitated. According to a much-
cherished tradition, his head was set up for public execration,
without the Venetian border on the domain of the Emperor
Lothair who had favoured this assault on the integrity of
Venice, while his drawn and quartered body was brought to
Rialto and publicly exposed there.

This example should have been terrible enough to frighten
all other conspirators against Partecipazii greatness and the
honour of St. Mark. Yet another leader was found by the
more than disaffected Malamoccans. One, Pietro Caroso, a
Tribune, drove Giovanni for a time from Venetian territory,
and made a rash effort to break the Partecipazii power by
proclaiming himself the Doge. But the family and following
of Doge Giovanni were too strong for a mere leader of faction
to overcome them. Giovanni soon returned to his own;
only, however, to meet at last a fate, curious enough to modem
ideas, but as characteristic of the times he lived in as was the
violent end of Obelerio. Going unattended on St. Peter's
day to the Cathedral of that name in Olivolo, Giovanni was
seized by some members of a disreputable family named
Mastalici, who first shaved his beard and gave him the tonsure,
then sent him to end his days in a monastery in Grado.

The story of Doge Agnello and his sons has been told at some
length, because of the revelation in it of the characters, not
only of the first three Doges Partecipazii, but of the four of the
same name who came after them. The same great character-
istics and incidental weaknesses mark also the personalities
of the family of Candiani (or Sanudi), which gave six Doges to
Venice during the same century that saw the coming to power
of the Partecipazii (Badoeri). One of these six was Tribuno

22 THE DOGES OF VENICE

Memo, who was kin to both the Partecipazii and the
Candiani.

Between the reigns of the third and fourth Partecipazii, a
kinsman of theirs — Pietro Teadonico — was elected Doge
by a preponderating vote. Soldier, seaman, statesman and
martyr, Tradonico seems to have strongly felt that he was
placed on the throne to vindicate the honour of the Partecipazii,
and to prove the right of the people's elected to be a king
indeed. Though prompt and wise in action, he had reverses.
Neither his first nor his second expedition against the Croatian
and Naretine pirates, whose assaults on Venetian shipping
were becoming frequent and formidable, was successful. It
was, however, a success of his rule that he carried war into
the enemy's habitation — the creeks, inlets and rockbound
coasts of Dalmatia — and was not content only to defend the
inner islands of the lagoons against invaders who looted,
burned and threatened as they sailed up the Venetian waters,
and then, when shoal, surf and the various intricacies of the
channel frightened them into a retreat, bore off again, leaving
the waiting warriors on Rialto with despoiled dependencies
and no foes to fight.

Immediately after his return from the last of the two in-
effective expeditions, which were the first enterprises of his
rule, Tradonico was besought by the Emperor of the East to
join in an attack on the Saracens who were invading Calabria.
This was an engagement too serious to be imdertaken without
much consideration, but in the end the courageous Doge
resolved to send to the aid of Theodosius a fleet of sixty
Dromoni, capacious, sea-going vessels, each manned by two
hundred men, and all being under one Captain — Pietro Parteci-
pazio — to whom it was policy to give the command, to prevent
him from bidding for the Dogeship.

Tradonico rightly judged the Eastern Empire to be the
only barrier for the time against a Mahommedan occupation
of Europe. In support of the integrity of that Empire he
felt that it behoved him to assist the Greeks. Yet there were
dearer causes still for which it became the commercial-minded
and freedom-loving Venetians to do battle, and Tradonico had
the wisdom to see that preparations of another kind from those

WOOERS OF THE ADRIATIC 23

of fitting-out ships and arming men were needed, if Venice
was to keep afloat an armada worthy of the foe to be resisted
and the object to be fought for. The compact between
Lothair the recently crowned Emperor of the West, and
Pietro Tradonico Duke of Venice, is a remarkable one, not
only because it remains the earliest document of Venice still
extant, but also because of its witness to the clear vision, keen
judgment and just views of its Venetian signatory. Tradon-
ico's design of drawing all the Italian states that had ports
on the Adriatic, into a firm bond of peace and mutual pro-
tection, while he asserted the sovereignty of Venice, was the
plan, both in conception and execution, of a true statesman.
The terms of the treaty provide ample evidence of the rapidity
with which Venetian ideas of government developed under
Tradonico, as well as of the extension of the personal authority
exercised, and the personal respect commanded, by that good
Doge. In addition to articles agreeing that peace and good
friendship should be established for five years between aU
cities subject to the Emperor Lothair and all places dependent
to the Venetian Dogado, it was provided that no incursions
into or damages to Venetian territory by inhabitants of the
mainland should be permitted ; that all fugitives from Vene-
tian justice, as well as all runaway slaves, should be sent
back to their original domiciles ; and that no subjects of the
King of Italy should carry aid to the enemies of Venice, but
should rather advise the Venetians of any hostile designs formed
against them. Moreover, agreements of earlier treaties which
defined the limits of Venetian domain and granted trading
and other privileges to the Venetian people, were once more
confirmed.

But all the force of the sixty Dromoni and the twenty
thousand fighting-men, backed by the strength of this treaty,
could not prevail against the fierce and overwhelming hordes
of the Saracens. The appearance of a Mahommedan flotiUa
in Venetian waters, while the Dromoni were yet engaged off the
coasts of Calabria, brought panic to the lagoon islands. The
later punishment of the akeady routed fleet of Pietro Badoer,
by the Saracens returning from victorious skirmishes in the
northern part of the Adriatic Sea, increased the dismay. It

24 THE DOGES OF VENICE

was a sore-hearted population that watched the return to
Venice of the straggling relics of the proud squadron that had
set forth. Matters were not improved by the quick following
of an alarm of Slav pirates who, taking courage from the
Saracenic triumphs, dashed into Venetian waters as far as the
town of Caorle which they devastated with sword and fire.
Venice was without a fleet. The only vessels that could be
in any way employed for the overtaking of the enemy were
two ships of a new design, made for simultaneous sailing and
rowing, and destined to be the guardships of the chief entrances
to the lagoons. Before these cumbrous barks could be put
into operation, the pirates had finished their raid and gone
off with their booty. Yet there was no convincing this mari-
time people that the dominion of the sea was not theirs.
Rather was the persuasion strong that but slight changes in
the conditions under which they had fought would have made
them the victors. Busy hands were soon at work again
building more ships. But the prouder spirits began to blow
resentment against Tradonico's government. Feuds between
the noble houses burst into flame. There were candidates for
the Dogeship in many leading families, and the Polani and the
Barbolani (the Montagues and Capulets of Venice) were out for
bron and desperate encounter. A visit to the Doge from the
Emperor Ludovico did not allay the discontent. This visit
was probably in view of Norman menaces, but the populace
never sees distant dangers and its design was misunderstood.

In his fortified and guarded palace, Doge Tradonico looked
on, in spirit if not in fact, at many a bloody affray. At last
he took the side of the Polani. This was not surprising, since
he himself came of that stock. Tradonico banished the Bar-
bolani and their associates from the city. Through the inter-
cession of the Emperor, into whose realm they were sent, the
Doge later allowed the turbulents to return to Venice. This
was a mistake. A greater mistake was his indulgence of a
predisposition to favour his own kin, in making an ecclesiastical
appointment that was displeasing to the Candiani.

As he came alone from vespers in the Church of San Zaccaria
on a day of the Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross, he was
assassinated by a gang of malcontents which included Giovanni

WOOERS OF THE ADRIATIC 25

Gradenigo and Stefano Candiano, who had sworn to rid the
state of its arch-troubler. In the general terror and confusion
that followed the attack, the Doge's mangled corpse was left
upon the ground, to be recovered in the night by some pious
monks who buried it in the church, from which Tradonico,
carelessly and without a guard, had come forth to meet his
doom.

The fourth Partecipazio (Orso) was grandson to the first
and father to the fifth. A memorable act of his reign was his
disregard of an injunction of Pope John viii to send to his
presence one Domenico Caloprini, who had been appointed
to the see of Torcello by the stubborn Partecipazio, in despite
of the refusal of the Metropolitan of Grado — Pietro Marturio
— to consecrate the bishop-designate. The reason given for
this refusal was that Caloprini was an eunuch. It wa$ rather
the truth that Marturio desired to challenge the ducal
authority to appoint to ecclesiastical posts. The duel between
Patriarch and Doge was not soon concluded. From the first it
went badly for the Archbishop. Very early in the contest he
retired precipitately to Istria, although he found a way thence
to Rome. Repeated commands from the Pontiff to Caloprini
and to the Bishops of Equilo and Malamocco who supported
the ducal appointment, to appear before him, met with no
response. At last Pope John sent a Roman bishop to Venice
to settle the dispute. Doge Orso gave an ungracious reception
to the Legate, and was sternly reproved by the Holy Father
in a solemn Council at Ravenna. To this Council the Doge
made a feint of sending Caloprini and his prelate-supporters,
although in truth he prevented their departure in time to reach
Ravenna while the Council still sat. Further thunders were
hurled at Orso Partecipazio, and the recalcitrant bishops were
excommunicated. Nevertheless, a compromise was arrived
at. The Doge needed the presence of the Archbishop in Venice
for the consecration of more diocesans-elect, and Martixrio
agreed to proceed there on condition that, during his lifetime,
no further appMcation should be made to him to confirm
Caloprini in the see of which he already did the work and
enjoyed the privileges. Yet Doge Orso remained tenacious
of the hberties of the Venetian Church and of the authority of

26 THE DOGES OF VENICE

his own office in it. On the death of Marturio, a few years later,
he would not present a member of his own family to the
province gf Grado, until he had the assurance of the relative
that upon his own consecration as Archbishop, he would
consecrate Caloprini, Bishop.

Besides resisting ecclesiastical encroachments, Doge Orso
gave stout battle to armed invasions of his country. He led
in person the first expedition of his reign, and obliged a ferocious
captain of the Slavs in Dalmatia to restore booty and enslaved
prisoners, and to give hostages for the observance of certain
terms of peace. It seems also that he himself commanded a
fleet of thirty Venetian ships, with some vessels from Zara and
other Dalmatian ports, in repulse of a Slav descent on Grado.
But it was by the arm of his diplomacy, rather than of his
navy, that he routed the Patriarch of Aquileia who, jealous as
holders of his office had ever been of the Primate of Grado,
had availed himself of the disturbances in Istria, Friuli and
Carinthia, to promote piratical invasions of the Archbishopric
of Grado, and to afHict the Istrian dioceses which, to the
constant grievance of Imperial Aquileia, had been placed
under the rule of RepubMcEin Grado. Kno\^dng well that the
inhabitants of Aquileia, as well as of Istria and aU other neigh-
bouring states, were dependent on their trade with Venice for
many of the necessities and most of the luxuries of life — as
life was then lived — Doge Orso sent forth an order for all
commerce between the Venetians and the Istrians to cease.
This brought the contriving and inimical Patriarch to his
knees. To obtain liberty for his own people to buy and sell
in Pilo and other ports of Venice, and to pacify indignant
Istrians, he undertook to abandon all hostile acts and to
protect the four Venetian trading-stands owned by the Doge
of Venice in the meirket-place of Aquileia.

For his conduct in this affair, the trading community
of Venice accounted Orso a true hero. Not so heroic did he
seem to these mercantile ones, when he promulgated an edict
against slavery. Yet his ducal onslaught on that grave
distemper of his time was unquestionably the act of a hero.
He risked a great unpopularity for himself and his office.

Other single-handed deeds of valour and of wisdom did

WOOERS OF THE ADRIATIC 27

Doge Orso perform; yet it was early in his reign that his
son — Giovanni — became joint Doge with him. Of a more
ambitious nature than his father, Giovanni Partecipazio was
quick to discern the menace to state integrity which lay in
the domination of Commacchio by the d'Este family. A
dispute between Marino d'Este and the Pope of Rome, from
whom Commacchio was held in fief, was the opportunity of
Doge Giovanni to obtain for his family, possession of the near
seaport, with its flourishing fisheries and profitable saltings.
The resistance to the feudal system which, from first to last,
the Venetians offered, did not come only of dislike of a foreign
domination. They were opposed to a tyrant-Doge, and, in
particular, to one who should make himself lord of territory
other than the true freehold of Venice, which they regarded
as the property of Doge and people alike. Although the
popular right of election was not always explicitly acknow-
ledged, and this Doge Giovanni himself was soon to overlook
it in a most remarkable manner, it could never be safely dis-
regarded unless the exerciser of an arbitrary power had his
fingers on the pulse of the wiU of the people and felt it throb in
sympathetic unison with his own-
To constitute a Doge of Venice, Lord of Commacchio,
woiUd not have been at all to the taste of the electors of the
Republic. It was, however, very generally felt that some re-
duction of the strength of the now fortified town that frowned
on Brondolo, last outpost to the south of the Venetian defences,
was desirable. The Doge proceeded warily and made secret
arrangements to send his next brother, Badoer {Badoero), to
Rome, to claim for himself and his heirs the fief of Commacchio.
Though successful with the Pope, Badoer was a bungler there
was no helping. The secret of his mission leaked out before
he reached Rome, and Marino d'Este posted an ambush to
waylay him as he retiurned. Badoer was assaulted, seized and
hurried to Commacchio, where he was strictly confined,
though treated with what, in the notions of his day,
was considered great humanity. Pain from a broken leg
and the smarting of other wounds were thumbscrew and
rack enough to induce the sufferer to give his oath that,
were he allowed to return to Venice, he would never accuse

28 THE DOGES OF VENICE

d'Este of his punishment, or reveal how he had been set upon
and carried to Commacchio. But when, in his native capital,
his end drew sensibly near, Badoer told the whole story, and
his quick decease was followed by loud cries of revenge against
Marino. Fierce was the resolution to administer a severe
punishment to the Commacchians and their Ravennese
supporters.

When the armed squadron of the Doge appeared before
Commacchio, d'Este had fied. The city made but a short
resistance and, burning and slaying as they went, the Venetians
passed from Commacchio to Ravenna, not holding their hands
until they had brought both cities low. Then, laden with
booty, and leaving behind them judges and consuls for the
protection of their own commerce, the men of Venice returned
great victors. Yet they had not conquered as completely as
Doge Giovanni had intended them to conquer. Neither had the
warlike onslaught on Commacchio culminated in the destruc-
tion of a vantage-point of attack on Venice. The spirit and
the health of Giovanni broke at this, but for a few years longer
he struggled to perform the duties of his of&ce. Then signs
and wonders in the skies, rumbling sounds, showers of brilliant
star-dust and the passage from east to west over the complete
arch of the heavens of a comet of flaming beauty startled the
inhabitants of Venice. Then — blood ! What else could be the
crimson flow that came out of the north and streamed across
the luminous southern night ?

These atmospheric disturbances and boreal splendours have
only a scientific interest for the modern mind. To the mediaeval
one they portended strange things ; boded divine visitations.
It is likely that the Doge, whom the failure of the design on
Commacchio had so deeply depressed, had the sensitiveness to
accept them as warnings from the Almighty that the good of
his rule had ceased.

After the blaze came darkness. Tempests overswept the
islands. The sea boiled and raged. Tides rose strangely
high, and storms uprooted trees and hurled houses into space.
Embankments burst and foundations of buildings gave way.
In times of national emotion and a common peril, much is
forgiven to the man whose inspiration goes before the law and

WOOERS OF THE ADRIATIC 29

who does the right thing, even if in a wrong way. Doge
Giovanni 11 determined to retire from office and to put a younger
and a stronger man in his place. His call to his two remaining
brothers in succession, to assimie the biretta he had the mind
to doff, failed to make another Partecipazio the Doge. The
first brother, Pietro, died almost coincidently ; the second —
Orso — ^would not accept a sole charge of the State. Giovanni
gave to his people leave to nominate whom they would as his
successor, and a shout went up for Pietro Candiano {Sanudo).
So without further official or ecclesiastical ceremony, Candiani
was conducted to the presence of the old Doge, who with his
own hands placed the biretta on the head of the new, then
handed him sword and sceptre and led him to the ducal throne.

To Pietro Candiano i belongs the honour of being the first
Doge to die for his country. Martial in habit and bold in
spirit, he equipped and commanded an expedition against
the still formidable Slav pirates within a few months of his
coming to the throne. The names of six of the captains of the
twelve galleys that formed his fleet were thereafter to be
ducal names — Dandolo, Morosini, Contarini, Zeno, Cornaro
and Orseolo. The noble families of Venice were multiplying and
the noble characteristics of the race becoming fixed and definite.

Into a rocky bay near Zara, where thickly-wooded chffs
intersected by guUies rose from the waters steeply, Candiano
chased the corsairs and by the impetuosity and heat of his
attack, drove them from their ships on to the craggy heights
and impassable growths of the shore. Setting to work with
vigour to destroy the abandoned vessels of the Slavs, Candiano
regarded not the dangers from the sheltered fugitives to the
exposed victors in the bay. An arrow, aimed too well, pierced
him through the body and, as he dropped, he died. Confusion
followed confusion. Abandoning their advantage and their
spoils, the Venetians set sail at once for home ; each and all were
moved by one thought, to get the body of their leader quickly
beyond the reach of Slav pursuers. One, Andrea Tribuno
(another ducal name), performed a special part in bringing the
honoured remains to Grado, where they found sepulture.

The imexpected tragedy was cause of extraordinary dis-
agreements among the electors of Venice. It was soon

30 THE DOGES OF VENICE

seen that votes for the successor to Pietro Candiano would
be scattered over a number of candidates. To allow the
election to go forward, could but render Venice the prey of
faction. In the dilemma, the universal voice called on
Giovanni Partecipazio to leave his retirement and resume
for a time the ducal office. He did what was asked, to the
end that the nation's suffrages might be brought into closer
accord. Seven months went by before that end was attained.
Then Pietro Tribuno was elevated to the ducal throne.

Through his mother — Angela, a niece of the Doge
Tradonico who had been assassinated as he came from the
Church of San Zaccaria — Pietro Tribuno was related to the
Candiani. He may therefore be regarded as a Doge of that race.
With the reputation of a peace-lover, the deeds by which he
won renown were martial. He added greatly to the fortifica-
tions of Venice which had not been extended since the time
of Orso II. A great wall of the heavy castellated type was
raised around Rialto, and a system of closing the entrances to
and the passages in the lagoons, by booms and chains, adopted.
News of these undertakings undoubtedly carried through
Italy and reached to Constantinople, but accounts of the
Venetian readiness to fight and preparations for defence did
not spread among the barbarous hordes of north-eastern
Europe. On the contrary, the ruthless and warlike Huns
were at the very time lured to the lagoons by reports of
the wonderful wealth and pacific disposition of the island
peoples there. So quick was the swarming on Venetian
frontiers of the barbarian horde, that the Doge was one day
surprised by the appearance near Albiola of an onrushing
army of ferocious savages, who were only not too savage for
the possession of the civilized vices of avarice and ambitions.

Tribuno was equal to the occasion. In his harangue to
the somewhat frightened assembly of electors, convened to
sanction his going forth to war, a true note of patriotism
vibrated.

Could the Venetians forget their immemorial freedom ?
he asked. Could they forget the sacrifices their progenitors
had made to liberty ? Above all, could they forget their
glorious victory in former days over the Franks ?

WOOERS OF THE ADRIATIC 31

This much to hearten his hearers. Then, lest confidence
should make them careless, he declared that they were now
faced by a worse enemy than Pepin and his mercenary
regiments. The ferocious barbarians, so he said, would not
be content with slaying the Venetians who should fall into
their hands ; they would undoubtedly eat them. Who would
not rise and defend their homes in such a case as this ?
Who would not ? Not the Venetians. They buckled on their
armour as one man. Yet all their defences of shield and
weapon, of stone walls and wooden booms, would have availed
them little had it not been for the maritime arts of their
people and the geographical situation of their shores. The
inhabitants of Padua, Concordia and Aquileia had fied before
the devastating enemy that had burned Chioggia and was
now thundering at the gate of Albiola. At almost the same
spot where King Pepin's siege had been resisted, and by
almost the same means as had defeated the earlier invaders.
Doge Tribuno routed the Huns. It was a triumph of cunning
knowledge over presumptuous ignorance. The barbarians
attempted to assail the Venetians in their own waters from
vessels of sea-going draught which they had seized, as they
came, in deserted Italian harbours. The propellers of light,
flat-bottomed craft had an advantage they themselves were
well aware of, but which the enemy did not understand. In
the end, the Hims, with the clumsy vessels they had stolen,
were for the most part stranded in the shoals and sands of
the lagoons. A great many fled in disordered haste to the
mainland with the Venetians harassing their retreat as skil-
fully as they had intercepted their approach.

Now was Tribuno honoured indeed. The Western Emperor,
Berengario, wrote him a pompous letter of thanks, in which he
called him " conversatore delta puhlica liberta ed espulsore dei
Barhari," and Leo, Emperor of the East, bestowed upon him
the title of Protospatario.

For the rest, the tale of Tribuno was much the same as
that of all but one of the Doges of the houses of Candiani and
Partecipazii that came after him. They were all live men
who understood their country's needs and, with greater or
less abiUty, promoted them conscientiously ; regarding them-

32 THE DOGES OF VENICE

selves, in all relations, as fathers of their people. Instincts
of nature were strong in them all, and were sources both of
their weakness and of their power. Each considered the son
of his body to be the only rightful heir and associate of his
own elective office. Most of them looked upon bishoprics
as places to which relatives of their own had first title. In
any case, their presentations to episcopal appointments were
constantly made in defiance of the authority of the Roman
Court, and in consonance with political rather than with
ecclesiastical needs.

We read of an Orso Partecipazio, the tenth Doge, and
PiETRO Partecipazio, the twelfth, and of the second and a
third PiETRO Candiano, who came eleven and thirteen in the
ducal list. There was also Vitale Candiano, the last of
the Candiani, whose reign of a year came to an end through
his voluntary retirement to the monastery of Sant' Ilario.
During the rule of all these, the compact first made between
Venice and the Western Empire in the time of Lothair and
Tradonico was renewed quinquennially, the Venetians ever
demanding and receiving complete recognition of their
independence and further additions to their trading privileges,
while the ducal tolls for the passage of the river-mouths were
constantly exacted, and were eventually extended to the use
of the sea-harbours. Missions to Constantinople were also
constant. A son of the reigning Doge was generally considered
the proper ambassador to the Eastern Suzerain. Excursions
against Slav pirates and other corsairs continued to be
imdertaken, and discussions between the primates of Aquileia
and Grado, concerning their powers over each other and
their respective jurisdictions of the Istrian dioceses, repeatedly
demanded the nice adjustment of the Doge in of&ce.

CHAPTER III
DOWNFALL OF A DYNASTY

A.D. 960 TO 991

IT was reserved for the fourth Pietro Candiano, who
was the fourteenth Doge of the Candiani family, to
destroy the fine mould of his Une's dignity, and to give
form, not only to all the more rebellious and the more impious
chsiracteristics of his race, but to display some features discerned
often enough in Venetian personality, but happily absent from
the common model, either of the Candiani or the Partecipazii.

A son of the second Pietro Candiano had had the wish to
chase his father from the throne, for the reason that — as this
dutiful one averred — ^his father was too old to be a Doge.
The populace rose, indignant against the unnatural design,
and would have given short mercy to the son but that the
aged parent pleaded. Banishment to Ravenna was substi-
tuted for death. But when the son of the third Pietro Candiano
behaved in the same cruel manner, and his father begged him
off in the same generous way, the citizens of Venice — ecclesi-
astical and lay — ^unanimously swore that nev«r, either in the
hfetime or after the death of good old Pietro, would they
elect the intending patricide as their Doge. This youth had
not merely whispered of deposition, he had gone forth in
arms and with a following against his father's train.
The commutation of the popular sentence to banishment
had no effect in softening his heart. He could not settle
peaceably with his appointed companions in Ravenna, as he
had been directed to do, but went a-fighting for Guido,
the Marquis, a son of King Berengario.

Coming in Guido's service, partly by accident and partly
by design, to the port of Primaro, Pietro tried to take it by
3

34 THE DOGES OF VENICE

assault. The attempt failed, but this was neither his first
appearance as a corsair in the Gulf of Venice, nor the last of
his efforts to disturb his father's reign. The audacity of the
man appealed at last to popular fancy. His enterprise and
capacity, rather than his temper and disloyalty, imposed
themselves on Venetian imagination, and the extraordinary
thing happened that in 959, Pietro Candiano iii was actually
deposed, as his unnatural son had conspired for him to be,
and, upon the initiative of the clerical and lay citizens of
Venice, the bandit was recalled and raised to the ducal throne.
Two months and fourteen days later, Pietro Candiano iii died.

In the first noteworthy act of his reign Pietro Candiano iv did
well enough. He renewed the prohibitions of Doge Orso Parte-
cipazio against the slave-trade. A deep enthusiasm for the
liberty of the individual stirred Pietro iv to emphatic utter-
ance on this matter. He had fought for the breaking of
fetters on his own comings and goings, moods and desires ;
had fought successfully and been acclaimed a true prince
because of his independence of bonds. No wonder, therefore,
that he came to the throne a very fanatic for freedom.

The Venetians peiid dearly for their unreasoning devotion
to the Candiani dynasty. The greed, cruelty and ambition
of Pietro iv soon became an abomination. He had a wife —
Giovanna — ^in aU probability of the patrician order, and un-
doubtedly submissive and pious. She had borne him a son
and daughter, already grown to man and womanhood. The
son, Vitale, was as fit in body and mind as any Candiani to
inherit a father's place and honours, albeit with some leanings
to an ecclesiastic, if not a monastic, life-. We do not know
that the religious dispositions of either wife or son troubled
the decidedly irreUgious Doge. What did annoy him, was
that his brother had married a lady of great wealth and much
political influence, while his own wife had brought him neither
money nor connexions of high political importance. Doge
Obelerio degli Antenori, if the first, had not been the only
Doge who had taken a spouse from a foreign and ruling house.
FeUcia, the consort of Doge Orso Partecipazio, was a daughter
of Rodoaldo, Duke of Bologna. Now, Doge Pietro Candiano iv
desired to gain Otto i of Germany as a friend for himself

DOWNFALL OF A DYNASTY 35

and Venice, and to have an heir who should inherit a royal,
as well as a ducal, estate and name.

History does not clearly reveal the ostensible ground upon
which the fourteenth Candiano separated himself from his
Giovanna, sending her to the convent of San Zaccaria, where
she took the veil, while he consigned his son Vitale to a
reUgious house, and gave him a little later the Archbishopric
of Grado. An early chronicler says that this Doge repudiated
his consort because she was old. Some later ones have added
that she was an unfaithful wife. Candiano had not certainly
the grievance that she had failed to give him an heir. We
must suppose that the ecclesiastics, without whose consent the
marriage could not have been annulled, were persuaded of
some shortcoming in the wife, but the records of the whole
affair give the idea that the Doge had his way by the exer-
cise of a very arbitrary authority over both clerical and lay
opinion in his own domain. The Dogaressa herseK seems
not to have opposed his wiU. The penances of conventual
life were probably less hard to bear than those laid upon
her by the tempers and excesses of a tyrant-husband. There
was no appeal from Venice to Rome, yet we cannot doubt
that Rome passed judgment and decided in favour of the
Doge and his prospective consort Gualdrada, daughter of
Hubert, Marquis of Tuscany and Duke of Spoleto, who had
recently regained the state of which King Berengario 11 had
for a time deprived him. The brother of Gualdrada eventually
succeeded his father as Hugo the Great of Tuscany. The
lord of Tuscany was a personage whose influence could tilt
scales of mercy and support for or against the Pope's dominion
in central Italy, and the Dogaressa-elect had in dot, besides
extensive lands in Treviso, Friuli and other parts of Italy,
with, among other castles, that of Ferrara, many slaves and
money in quantities sufficient to satisfy Rome's venal maw.

So Gualdrada, with a bodyguard of foreign soldiers and
an attendant train of foreign servants, came in great state
to Venice, bringing with her also many foreign and feudal
practices. For the first time in Venice was the custom of
presenting a bride with a morning gift observed. Pietro be-
stowed upon Gualdrada, on the day of their nuptials, a quarter

36 THE DOGES OF VENICE

of his goods, pro morganationis carta. The new Dogaressa
was haughty, contemptuous and self-regarding. Although the
daughter of an adventurer who had made himself a Prince,
she gave herself the airs of an hereditary and royal Princess,
who condescended greatly in allying herself with the chief of a
company of merchant-adventurers and sea-pirates, dangerous
if they were not at once propitiated and kept in their place.

In consequence of all this, the Doge became unpopular.
He lost popularity also because he tried to make himself
independent of control, and to deprive the Patriarch of Grado
and the Bishop of OUvolo of all consultative authority in
political affairs. But his fatal marriage was his main offence.
Not alone was the castle of Ferrara garrisoned with foreign
troops, but in the courtyard of the Ducal Palace itself was
set a guard of Gualdrada's men-at-arms. So rapidly did
the disaffection of his people grow from the seeds of the
Dogaressa's contumely and his own pride in her and in his
new condition, that he seems to have been taken by surprise
when, upon a day, the rabble of the town came battering at
the palace door. Yet it was not a headless mob, not even a
suddenly-stirred populace, that called to him to come down
and hear the judgment passed upon him. There was one, at
least, of noble family and pure heart, who beheld visions of a
new heaven and a new earth, and who was a fanatic for the
bringing in of a better order and a truer government.

Erstwhile Ambassador to the Court of Otto i, and already,
though perhaps unknown to himself, the appointed Leader
of Venetian destinies, Pietro Orseolo counselled the people
to fire the Doge's palace, if the Doge did not 3deld to their
demands for his appearance and bow low before the righteous
indignation of his people.

The tumult was yet at height before the palace, when
Gualdrada, horrified and affronted, fled from the rear under an
escort of her armed retainers. The Doge seems early to have
taken possession of his child by the Tuscan Princess, and to
have wandered with the infant and its wet-nurse from chamber
to chamber of the palace. Now he looked forth with pale, scared
face on the angry mob in the Piazzetta ; now saw to the streng-
thening of such defences as there were. At last., despairing of

DOWNFALL OF A DYNASTY 37

all triumph over the popular outburst, he made to escape through
the door of the palace giving into the Chapel of St. Mark.

Perhaps it was only sanctuary he sought — sanctuary
beneath the altar of the Lion who was sentinel and shield
for all Venice, but, in particular, the guardian of the Doge !
In any case, he fled from the rising fury of the besiegers of his
palace and from the suffocating smoke of the inflammable
materials piled high against the palace walls and ablaze from
an incendiary torch. In the church, however, as he emerged
in haste, he found a solemn council. The " maggiorenti," his
peers and associates, his kith and kin, the members of the inner
conclaves of his government — all gathered to intercept his
flight. He stood before them, holding high his child. " And
you also, my brothers ? " he cried, aggrieved, " are you, too,
united for my hurt ? If I have sinned by word or public
action, alas ! grant me Ufe and I promise to redeem every-
thing." But the nobles protested that the Doge was a pestilent
fellow and worthy only of death. They cried out that it would
be vain for him to attempt to flee and, with many sword-
thrusts, struck him to the ground.

The wet-nurse tried to save his unweaned babe, but the
maddened assassins dragged the infant from her arms and
iniquitously murdered it. The corpses of the two — the male-
factor and the innocent — were flung into an open boat and
pushed off for the shambles, but a pious man rescued the poor
wan things and gave them decent biirial in the Abbey of Sunt'
Ilario. As for Gualdrada, whose faithful Tuscan guards had
paid penalty for their fidelity with their hves, she found her
way to the court of Otto 11 and cried to Adelheid, the Empress-
Mother, for declaration of a vendetta against Venice. The
representations of the Empress only seconded in the ears of
Otto the complaints and suggestions of Vitale Candiano, the
son of the murdered Doge by his Venetian spouse. In the end
Gualdrada obtained, by virtue of the Emperor's intercessions
and of the sense of justice in the pious denouncer and successor
of her husband, heavy damages in money. But the Doge
of Venice could not give her back her babe. The guiltless
suffered for its parents' sins.

The Emperor, who could have had but little personal con-

38 THE DOGES OF VENICE

cern for the woes of Gualdrada and less for an execution of
popular vengeance on her husband, never forgave the Venetians
their slaughter of Gualdrada's son. As heir of the Doge and
the Emperor's own kinsman, the child might have lived to
deliver Venice into Imperial hands. Slaying the tender inno-
cent, the people of the lagoons had retained their sovereignty
and put themselves into state to demand again renewal of their
quinquennial treaty with the Holy Roman Empire of the West.

In place of the libertine, the rebel and the autocrat, there
came to the throne a pure-lived, devout and conscientious officer
of the national will.

PiETRO Orseolo I seems never to have regretted his part
in the incendiary revolt which burned out of the Palace of the
Doge and of the government of Venice the root of corruption
planted there by the fourth Pietro Candiano. Orseolo's wrath
against his predecessor had been the blazing wrath of the Man
of God, convinced of the iniquity of the system and the vice of
the man he aimed at, and assured of his own possession of the
spirit which discerns things good and evil. Although a husband
from his eighteenth year and a father, he followed now a
cloisteral rule and Uved in his own house separate from
his wife Felicia, whose piety and devotion were even as his
own. To him it was no punishment, rather a boon, that the
fire he had himself stirred up had rendered the ducal palace
uninhabitable. It had also destroyed about thirty neighbour-
ing houses and considerably injured the Churches of San
Teodoro and San Marco. The damage to the churches seems,
however, to have been less the cause of the great rebuilding
then taken in hand than the piety of Orseolo, who not only
promoted the sumptuous rearing of one grand fane above the
shrines of both the earher and the later Saints-Patron of
Venice, but also designed and built a Campanile, together
with a wonderful hospital for the nursing of the sick poor and
the entertainment of the pilgrims who were then coming in
increasing numbers from aU parts of the Christianized world to
venerate on Rialto the remains of St. Mark.

Orseolo i performed many other useful acts, one of which
was the convoking of the popular assembly for the purpose
of levying a tax of one-tenth, payable in money or in kind,

PIETRO ORSEOLO I

FK'i-M A PAINTING IN THE PALAZZO DUCALE, VENICE

DOWNFALL OF A DYNASTY 39

to meet the deficit in the public accounts caused by recent
wars of the Candiani, by the conflagration on Rialto and by the
damages awarded to the Dbgaressa Gualdrada. But for all
his activities for the social welfare and for the enrichment of
Venice, the desire of Orseolo was ever towards the cloisteraL
life. Not satisfied to return day by day from the businesses
of the palace to the contemplations of his cell and oratory,
he pined to be whoUy immured ; to hear no more the debates
of the maggiorenti or the clamours of the populace. He tired
even of his visits to the sufferers and pilgrims in his hospital.
Yet it does not seem that he proposed to himself an existence
aU of penance and seclusion, until there visited him one day
a monk — Guerino — of St. Michael in Acquitaine. This one's
tales of the great blessedness of retirement and of his monastery's
pecuhar need of restoration and embellishment, gave a definite
direction to the Doge's longing.

" O father and benefactor of my soul," are the recorded
words of Orseolo's cry to Guerino, " with great avidity I yearn
to follow thy counsel. Grant me only sufficient time to
dispose of my affairs and then I will submit myself in thy
monastery, to all thy orders ; then wUl I no longer desire to
fight, except for God."

Was Orseolo the Pious at last overtaken by remorse for
his part in the incendiary attack on the palace ? Some
Venetian writers have it so. Others assert that such a saint
could never have proposed the conflagration. But the rapt
do not shrink from crime for their own causes. In any case
a compact was entered into, and for a time Guerino went
back to his monastery and Orseolo to his cares of state. But
the hour came when the monk returned to Venice, as if passing
through on the way to Jerusalem. With him were two other
Brothers of St. Michael. None in Venice knew of the intention
of the Doge. Yet his plans were weU laid. During the
night of 1st September 978, Pietro Orseolo i fled from Rialto
in company with Giovanni Gradenigo, and with his son-
in-law, Giovanni Morosini. At Sant' Ilario horses waited
for them. The three Venetians, joined, as must be
supposed, by the three French monks, rode rapidly across
country into France where they came, at last, without let or

40 THE DOGES OF VENICE

hindrance, to the long-desired monastery. Orseolo was then
fifty years of age. He lived for eighteen years in the monastery,
subject to many and severe penances. The fact that he gave
much money for the restoration of the building seems not to
have excused him from rigours as severe as any that could have
been inflicted on the most refractory and profitless.

After some years his son visited him in his retreat, and the
father then predicted the glory of the reign of Pietro Orseolo ii.
The first Orseolo's abdication of solemn duties cannot be
justified, yet the very defection that roused his people's wrath
at the time, was accounted to him later for righteousness.
Soon after his death in 997 there began, both in France and in
Venice, his veneration as a Saint.

Orseolo i was succeeded by Vitale Candiano, the well-
married brother of the slaughtered Pietro iv. After a brief day of
authority, Vitale went to die in the monastery of Sant' Ilario. To
him succeeded the husband of the assassinated tyrant's daughter.

Tribuno Memo had wealth and connexions that made his
Dogeship almost inevitable. But as a lover of gardens and
of quiet, he had neither the decision of character that should
be in a true ruler, nor the taste for pomp and business that may
make a puppet in office play his part well enough. In his
time, feuds were fierce and frequent between the Morosini and
the Caloprini. It was the old conflict between east and west,
revived in slightly different form. Doge Memo was unable
to repress the brawls. He could only take sides by turns and
thus excite, rather than heal, the disturbances. At last a
terrible tragedy befeU a Morosini particularly distinguished
for his piety and virtue. He had been seized by the Caloprini
as he was leaving the Cathedral of San Pietro, beaten to death,
stripped and thrown into an open boat that lay off the water-
gate of San Zaccaria. The Caloprini were banished, and in
their exile their desires for personal dominion and revenge
upon the Morosini drove them to sell their interest in the
government of Venice to the German Emperor. The death
of Otto alone prevented Stefano Caloprino from going to
Venice in arms, to take it nominally for himself but virtually
for the Emperor. By the intervention of that peace-loving
Dowager, the Empress Adelheid, Caloprino and his following

DOWNFALL OF A DYNASTY 41

were allowed to return to Venice, but only to find, as was indeed
most natural, that his horde were objects of hatred for the
multitude, and quite out of favour at Court. During their
absence. Doge Memo had given to one of the Morosini, who
was that son-in-law who had ridden by " Saint " Orseolo in
his midnight flight to Acquitaine, a beautiful little island
facing the ducal palace, covered with olives, cypresses, gardens
and vineyards, and having a chapel on it dedicated to St.
George the Martyr. The original charter of this donation is
still to be read. In it, Tribuno Memo renounced in favour of
the Benedictine brothers all the island, together with the
chapel and the books and treasures thereof. Morosini, who
had returned to Venice only to become a Benedictine monk
in his native place, as it was the wonder of many, including his
own cloistered wife Felicia, that Doge Orseolo had not done,
was at the head of the foundation.

The Morosini were truly in the ascendant, but no benefits
heaped upon them by Doge Memo or another made them
either forgive or forget the crime of the Caloprini in murdering
their much-respected relative. The long feud had yet to close
in a greater disaster. As the three brothers Caloprini descended
one day from the ducal palace and went to step into their boat,
they were set upon by the Morosini, who did them all to death
and threw their battered corpses into the canal. This outrage
brought the term to Memo's dogeship. It Wcis the popular
thought that, if he had not instigated, he should have known
a way to prevent this horrible deed.

There remain two accounts of the end of Tribuno Memo.
One tells that he was forced to vest himself as a monk and repair
to San Zaccaria, where he died in six days' time. The other,
more unique, does not make the Doge so blameworthy, but
gives us to believe that the mild nature-student and garden-
lover, to whom the glories of a crown had never been attractive,
finding himself powerless to restrain the violent affrays of the
opposed families, laid down the sceptre his nerveless hands
had failed to wield effectively, and went back to the home and
garden at San Marcuola he had left with regret for the palace
and the throne.

CHAPTER IV
THE ADRIATIC WON

A.D. 991 TO 1085

WITH the reign of Pietro Orseolo 11, the destinies
of the Orseoli family came to zenith. It was yet
the tenth century when he was elected Doge, and
revealed himself at once a statesman and a man of business.

His earliest act was the sending of Ambassadors to the
Eastern Empire where Basil and Constaniine then ruled jointly,
and to the Western, where Otho iii had just attained his
majority. Having paid the time-honoured courtesies rendered
to Europe's hereditary Suzerains by independent Dukes of
Venice, Orseolo 11 gave evidence of individuality and a zeal
for Venetian commerce and Venetian credit, by making special
compacts with various princes, khans and governors in Asia,
Egypt, Spain and Sicily. Parleying with these rulers meant
entering into friendship with the Saracens. Yet Orseolo did
not hesitate to negotiate, since the time was not ripe for
threatening. Besides, the Venetians had long held traffic,
profitable if more or less surreptitious, with the chief enemies
of Christendom, and this great Doge saw the need of raising
the trade relations of Venice to a plane of honour. That he
scorned all underhand dealings was shown a little later when
he refused any longer to pay the Narentine pirates a yearly
bribe to let Venetians have free course in the Adriatic. Orseolo
backed his refusal by sending across the Gulf of Venice six
armed galleys which" tempted the pirates to an onslaught that
was quickly and gallantly repulsed. A little later he received
on Rialto independent deputations from Zara, Justinople and
other cities of the opposite coast, asking for the protection of

THE ADRIATIC WON 43

the Doge against the many petty tyrants of those shores.
By these tokens Orseolo knew that the hour had struck for
a demonstration of might and resolution that could not be
mistaken, and that must be immediately performed if Venice
were to become in truth, as well as name, the Queen of the
Adriatic.

The popular assembly was enthusiastic for the expedition
he proposed to it. A still greater enthusiasm signalized his
taking of command, on Ascension Day 998, of a fleet of two
hundred vessels of various bulk and sail. A religioxis and
patriotic service at San Pietro preceded his setting out for
Grado, whence it was his design to conduct his armada in
pompous procession along the whole coast of Istria and
Illyria. To the great standard of St. Mark which he had
received in the Cathedral of Olivolo, was joined at Grado
a sacred emblem of SS. Ermacora and Foriunaio, confided to
him in the Cathedral there by the Patriarch, a Candiano.

The imposing cruise of the Doge's intention was most
successfully carried out. Port after port received the Venetian
fleet with every possible demonstration of relief and dehght.
Not only the fathers of the Illyrian coast-towns nominally
subject to the Emperors Basil and Constantine, but Dalmatian
and Slav chiefs with their retinues from mountain castles
and inland states like Croatia, which were supposedly under
the dominion of the Emperor Otto, paid homage to the
Venetian Doge. His aid was besought for wars against the
common enemy, the Narentines, and for struggles to put down
internecine strife and faction and to resist tyranny within
home confines. On the islands of Cherso and Ossaro, then
possessed by the Croatians, were gathered with the more
permanent inhabitants a concourse of Roumanians and
other Slavs, who welcomed the Doge with reverence, and
pledged themselves to own his authority over them. On
Whitsuhday — ten days from the day of his embarkation.
Ascension Day — there was held in the church of one of these
islands a great thanksgiving service, at which, just before
the Exaudi Christe, in the place where in Greek churches
a praise of the Emperor was always sung, there was inter-
polated a laud oi the Doge, serenissimo ei excellentissimo prin-

44 THE DOGES OF VENICE

cipus el dominus nostra gratiosissimo. At Zara the principal
citizens, with their Bishop, gave Orseolo a pompous recep-
tion, and there awaited him deputations of welcome and
submission from the islands of Veglio and Orbo. There
came to him also at Zara an embassy of conciliation from
Dircislaus, King of Croatia ; while a little farther on, at Trau,
the brother of the King— Crescimir— asked for aid in making
good his claim to a joint kingship with Dircislaus. Suspecting
that the show of friendship by King Dircislaus had been only
a move to gain time to arrange with the Narentines a
combined attack on the Venetian fleet, Orseolo listened diplo-
matically to the prayer of Crescimir, who confided to the
Doge, as a hostage of Croatian fealty, his own son Stephen.

While at Trau, Orseolo detached ten of his two hundred
galleys and sent them to give battle to a Narentine squadron
returning from Puglia. Then he passed on with his main
fleet, a victor by acclamation, to Belgrade and Spalatro,
where the Narentines, whose resistance of the Venetians had
been short, sent to the Doge to beg. terms of peace and to
renounce all claims to tribute-money. But other vessels of
these pirates overtook ships of Orseolo, and circled round to
resist them at Lagosta, so he had at last to show himself a
man of war. He besieged Curzola, where resistance was only
slight, and sailed on to Lagosta, where from behind frowning
barricades of art's and nature's making, and upon heights
of rock considered unassailable, the Narentines hurled missiles
of every conceivable kind upon the sharpshooters, arbalisters
and engineers below. There were " handy-men," however,
among the old Venetians. Precipices were scaled. A tower
that was reckoned a main defence was taken by assault ;
and all accomplished by that combination of massed discip-
line and individual enterprise which must prevail against
all odds. There remained only Ragusa to submit, and that
important place capitulated peacefully as soon as the news
of the victory of Lagosta reached it.

Orseolo was a victor indeed. He had now but to visit
once more his newly acquired dependencies and to appoint
to them Venetian dukes or governors, whom he recognized
in some degree as representatives of the Emperor at

THE ADRIATIC WON 45

Byzantium. To Ragusa he nominated his eight-year-old
son, Ottone, which proves the governorships to have been
more or less honorary offices. Indeed, it is the view of some
historians that Orseolo proclaimed all his deputies as holding
of&ce from the Greek Government rather than from his own.
In any case, it was the custom from that time forward,
throughout the period of Venetian ascendancy, to insert a
laud of the Doge of Venice immediately after, though not
in place of, the praise of the Greek Emperor in the lUyrian
and Dalmatian church-services.

The return of the Doge to Rialto was a triumph. Amid
the praises of his people he assumed with all solemnity the
title of Doge of Venice and Dalmatia. It is a tradition
that he wished to call himself also Doge of Croatia, but even
in his day of incomplete conquests and loosely defined offices,
it seems to have been considered that he had really no right
to further extension of his appellations. He was not Doge
of Dalmatia in the sense in which he was Doge of Venice.
He had left the laws and customs of each province, island and
township undisturbed, and had limited his toUs of conquest
to demanding an annual tribute in money, produce, galleys
or fighting-men, according to the several capacities and
industries of the places conquered. From the King of
Croatia (or Hungary) he does not appear even to have obtained
tribute, but he had come to some kind of peace terms with
him, and it is possible that the subsequent marrying of his
own daughter, IceUa, to the princeling-hostage Stephen, was
a consimimation of designs formed at this time for a future
dependence of Hungary upon Venice.

Meanwhile the submissions of the lUyrian and Dalmatian
towns, and the repulsions of the Narentine pirates, were
complete enough to fire the imagination of the Venetians with
a vision of their Doge as Lord of the Adriatic. The sea into
which their Gulf of Venice merged must be the freehold of
the Republic. The Venetians felt that they at last possessed
the gracious element which was chief source of all their
physical sustenance, chief arm of their liberty's defence.
All the pride and all the hope the fair vision evoked, found
dramatic expression on the first anniversary of the Ascension-

46 THE DOGES OF VENICE

Day ^sailing of Doge Orseolo ii from Rialto, when the
great Water Festival, which became so celebrated under the
name of " The Marriage of the Adriatic," was instituted.
The Norman conquest of England was yet deep in the womb
of Time when there skimmed over the Canal of S. Nicolo del
Lido a bark called a piatto, covered with cloth of gold and
having a flask of water, a vessel of salt and an aspersory
(sprinkler) conspicuously displayed before" a standing group
of bishops and priests, who passed thus in full canonicals to
meet the great barge of Doge Pietro Orseolo ii, first true lord
and ransomer of the mother of all loyal Venetians. The
Adriatic had been enslaved. To ride upon her waters had
meant terror and great risk of plunder. Now could the Doge
claim his own, and the Bishop of Olivolo pray without
mockery, " Deign, O Lord, to concede that this sea shall
belong to us and to all those who navigate her tranquilly
and quietly ! "

After this prayer came a solemn blessing of the flask
of water, and then the Bishop, with the Dean of St. Mark,
went on board the barge, to be replaced later in history by the
Bucintoro. As both ships of state neared the sea, the prelate
first sprinkled the Doge and those about him, then poured the
rest of the holy water into the Adriatic.

At the time of the institution of this simple ceremony,
Orseolo was indeed tasting the sweets of personal fame, and
reaping credit for his good govermnent of Venice. After
Easter, but before Ascensiontide in that same year, the young
Emperor Otto iii came to Venice, and conceived such an
admiration for the skill of the conqueror of the Adriatic,
that he referred to him always afterwards as Compara (Master).
The manner of the Emperor's visit was pictioresque and
mysterious. Feigning to go to the baths at Pomposa near to the
border of the Dogado, he crossed the Po and, without waiting
for a worthier craft that had been ordered for him, embarked
in the middle of the night on a little raft, accompanied only
by Count Eccelino (later Duke of Bavaria), by Rambaldo,
Count of Treves, and by a knight and two chaplains. With
blithe hearts these youthful princes pushed off for the Venetian
isles, but twenty-four hours of tempest ensued, and it was

THE ADRIATIC WON 47

evening on the following day when the strange crew on a
stranger craft arrived at San Senolo, where the Doge, some-
how forewarned, awaited their coming. The meeting of the
rulers was affectionate and emotional, but, to avoid revelation
of the traveller's identity, the Doge preceded his guest to
Rialto. The Emperor, arriving later at the, Ducal Palace,
duly admired its beauties and was ushered to an apartment
in the eastern tower.

Announcing themselves as ambassadors of Otto, who,
they said, remained at Pomposa, the Count Eccelino and his
companions were received in state, and given lodgings in the
vicinity of the palace. By these means Otto enjoyed much
private colloquy with his host, and in the guise of an Abbot
went about the city without recognition. He gave further
sign of his regard for Orseolo by holding a baby girl of his at
the font. To the Emperor's request upon leaving, to name
his desires, the Doge asked only for the full and secure tutelage
of all Venetian subjects and churches on the mainland, and
Otto refused all gifts the Doge profusely offered. He was
persuaded, however, to accept an ivory chair with a box
beneath, a little silver cup, and a vase of exqtiisite workmanship.
Doge and Emperor parted at last with many embraces and
protestations of friendship. Both of them had the generosity
to recognize generosity, yet, for all their resignations of
treasures of territorial and monetary value, both desired
gifts of political worth of one another. The young Emperor,
who had recently beheld the anarchy and disorder of a Pope-
less Rome, had the ambition to revive the Roman Empire,
and to re-establish the seat of it by his own assumption of the
crown there. He wanted also to join east to west by marrying
a Grecian Princess. The friendship of the Lord of the Adriatic
and Commander of the Venetian fleet was essential to the
Imperial purpose. Poor Otto never gained his end. Within
a few short months from his romantic visit to Venice, he was
dead — at twenty-two years of age ! Orseolo, his " master "
indeed in accomplishment and state experience, obtained
more from the suppliant youth than the would-be Imperator
and King of all Christendom received of the Doge of Venice.
The pride of the population of the islands must indeed have

48 THE DOGES OF VENICE

been great, when Orseolo ii announced to his people who it was
who had lately visited thena, and what amiable and generous
concessions had been gained. Gratifying, too, must have
been, both to Doge and people, the reflection that a Sovereign
and art-lover who had so recently contemplated the beauties
of majestic, treasure-laden Rome, had admired with en-
thusiasm the architectural values and decorative splendours
of the Ducal palace and church, to the erection of which
Orseolo ii contributed much wealth and taste.

Yet another expedition of glory was undertaken by this
great Doge, when he fitted out and commanded a large fleet
to go to the relief of Bari, a Greek town and colony on the
coast of ApuHa that had fallen into the hands of the Saracens.
At Bari, even, more than at Lagosta, the judgment, valour
and tactics of Orseolo were called into play. For three days
the assault on the Mahommedan position went on furiously,
but the advantage gained seemed small to the assailants.
Yet, lo and behold ! while the Venetians waited for another
dawn to renew their attack, the white-robed ancients folded their
tents, " hke the Arabs " they were, and stole away in the night !

Loudly the Baretines praised Orseolo as their liberator !
Well did his own coimtrymen approve this, his second most
glorious exploit ! And so content were the Greek Emperors
with the way their work had been done for them, that they
invited the son of the Doge — Giovanni Orseolo — to their
court, and gave him there for a wife the Princess Maria, niece
of the Emperor BasU.

The nuptials of the pair were solemnized with every regal
symbol. Bride and bridegroom took up their residence in a
palace at Constantinople that was part of Maria's dot. Yet
for all the gorgeousness and flattery of the Byzantine life,
Giovanni was impatient to conduct his Princess to Rialto.
They had to await the return of Basil from an expedition
against the Bulgarians. While they waited, a son was born
to them. At last the youthful pair with their babe came in
state to Rialto, and received an enthusiastic welcome. AU
Venice approved the high aUiance. The Doge went forth to
meet his children with splendid convoy of barges and other
craft. Rejoicings were on a scale never before attained to

THE ADRIATIC WON 49

on the islands. But the scourge of life's uncertainties and
the body's ailments cut short the conmion joy, and dealt to the
hope and pride of Orseolo a slashing blow.

A comet appeared in the skies flashing first above the
horizon a Uttle point of light, but revealing presently its
peculiar form. That fan of fire was an omen. Disaster
was coming upon Venice and the Doge. The plague broke
out and scarcity followed the plague. Arts and industries
were arrested ; traffic on the ministrant sea, as well as on the
lagoons, suspended. High and low, rich and poor, aU suffered
alike. In the Palace of the Doge, Giovanni Orseolo and his
Grecian Princess were both laid low. With them, or before^
perished also their chUd. In one sepulchre in the monastery
of San Zaccaria the two were laid. They lie there, aU the
dust of them, to this day.

In sjmapathy for their stricken leader, the Venetians
begged Orseolo to associate with himself in the cares of govern-
ment his stiU younger son, Ottone. With bowed head the
Doge acceded to their request. He had tasted to the full the
cup of celebrity and happiness ; had lived his life, every
moment of it, strenuously and beneficently. But now, in
the autumn of his days, the comet, the plague, the famine,
and all that those visitations imported of personal sorrow,
official anxiety and reUgious apprehension, had struck at the
root of joy in him. The Venetian character and the mediaeval
time were fertile in sharp contrasts ; full of developments
which to us in the cold north and of the hard modern world,
seem strange. Yet for his age and of his race, it was a natural
transition to pass, as he did, from marital Ufe and a splendid
state existence, to the soUtude of a cloister and the qmet of
contemplative days.

Taking both of them the vow of chastity, Pietro Orseolo
and his wife separated and went each to a cell apart within
the walls of the Ducal Palace. From these cells they did not
emerge, and a very short time after, being but forty-eight years
of age and having reigned seventeen years and six months,
Pietro Orseolo 11 went hence and was no more seen. His name
hved on and marks to-day a glorious stage of development
in the history of the Venetian Republic.
4

50 THE DOGES OF VENICE

OrroNE Orseolo was only eighteen years of age when
left sole Doge. The peaceful acquiescence of the aristocratic
families in his exaltation, shows how strongly rooted in the
Venetian people was their faith in the wisdom, courage and
genius of his race. The youth himself followed with dignity
and a good spirit in the footsteps of his father. By his
marriage in his twenty-first year to a sister of Stephen the
Saint- King of Hungary, he fulfilled a project formed for him
by his predecessor, and, withal, further extended the consequence
of Venice in European politics. His brother-in-law and his
sister (Icella) became about the same time King and Queen
of Croatia. But royal alliances could not heal all national
jealousies, and although by right of his relationships Ottone
was called upon in 1018 to settle a quarrel between Dalmatia
and Croatia, he failed to pacify the disputants, and had to lead
an army into Croatia. Victory on land was followed by a
cruise along the coast, in something of the same state and
for the exaction of a similar homage his father had assumed
and received. Ragusa was the only city that objected to
his suzerainty, yet Ottone was the same small boy, now
grown a man, who twenty years ago had been set over it as
governor. The Ragusans, however, while reclaiming independ-
ence, agreed to accept a Venetian Podesta, or Chief-Magistrate,
to be triennially re-appointed.

A dispute that arose between the Gradenigi and the Orseoli
concerning the succession of a youthful priest of the Gradenigi
clan to the bishopric of Olivolo which had been held by his
uncle, provided sudden ignition for fuel of hopes, jealousies and
ideas, long concealed in the breasts of the maggiorenti. The
Orseoli had now been many years in power, and the very
success of their enterprises, the very blamelessness of their
rule, made them personally hated of the petty ambitious, and
officially disliked by the theorist-politicians who believed in
government by certain axioms and regulations which the
Orseoh, in the brilliancy of their individual attributes and
the wisdom of their personal proceedings and alliances, entirely
confounded.

One DoMENico Flabianico, an arch-theorist and soured
bachelor, was the leader of the opposition to the Orseolo

THE ADRIATIC WON 51

domination. He wished to revert to first principles and to
forestall contingencies. It galled him that the special ways
and characteristics of the Orseoli rendered the reform of many
governmental abuses difficult. He was set on passing laws
that would not only prevent another popular family succession,
but would also favour the elevation to the ducal throne of men
of brains and notions who were heirless. It must not be
thought, however, that all of Flabianico's ideas and schemes
were self-centred, nor that there was not much that was
wise and just in his views and designs. In a sense, he repre-
sented liberalism, as opposed to conservatism, but his liberalism
was based on oligarchic, not on democratic principles. He
was an " old-fashioned liberal" in uncompromising form. He
wished all men above a certain social level to have their
chance. It was a vested interest in the supreme state office,
not in any state office, that he objected to. The prerogatives
of all members of the order just below the throne were those
he maintained with thin-lipped energy. It was not to make
a government more popular that he laboured, planned and
plotted. No government could have been more popular, more
expressive of the genius, more gratifying to the pride of the
nation, than that of the Orseoli. The worth and achievements
of that family had been an object-lesson for aU time of what
bireeding and training may accomplish for the creation of a
race of rulers. The characters and accomplishments of the
successive Orseoli in the ducal office had impressed the
rulers of other nations with respect for Venetian fitness and
admiration for Venetian power.

None of these things moved Flabianico. He saw only that
affairs were not carried on in the State of Venice according to
his own pet formulae. Yet his goverimiental ideas were in
accord with the first projects of the Venetian freemen. They
matched those projects also, in that both Flabianico and his
party in the eleventh century, as the electors of Pauluccio
Anafesto in the seventh, were agreed that any Doge worthy
of the suffrages of Venetians must belong to a family of
antiquity, distinction and wealth ; in fact, must be a noble
or maggioreAto of the nation. The great divergence between
the principles of Flabianico's followers on Rialto, and those of

52 THE DOGES OF VENICE

the constitution's progenitors on old Heraclea, started in the
character of the assembly to which the election of a Doge and
the sanctioning of ducal enterprises and edicts were confided.
The early arengi, or popular assemblies, were convocations of
aU inhabitants, except a few serfs and other bondsmen who
could not shout with the voices of free voters. Since the
seventh century a numerous middle-class of small traders and
workpeople had developed. Flabianico was opposed to the
entry of these into politics. Through his machinations, Doge
Ottone Orseolo and his brother Orso, the Patriarch, were
forced to retire for a time to Dalmatia. They were soon
recalled, but only to find the strength of the party against
them growing. A taste for the sweets of the Dogeship had
been whetted in other individuals of the great families of
Venice besides Flabianico, who was not generally liked,
although he had succeeded in making his tenets acceptable.
The retirement of the Orseoli again became necessary, and Doge
Ottone was banished to Constantinople.

One PiETRO Barbolano was seated in the ducal chair in
1026. His reign was insignificant, notwithstanding that he had
an eye to the main chance, both for Venice and for himself.

The story of the eventual deposing of Barbolano, of the
strong revulsion of feeUng in favour of the Orseoli djoiasty,
of the making of Vitale OrseoH, Bishop of TorceUo, the
deputy-Doge for a time, while Orso Orseolo, the Archbishop,
was sent to Constantinople to bring back to his own the
exiled Ottone, who had taken refuge at the Court of his late
brother Giovanni's father-in-law, now become the Grecian
Emperor, has in it that irony which is a property of nearly
all true tales. Archbishop Orso reached the eastern capital
only to find his brother, the Doge, already dead. He
performed the funeral services with due solemnity, accom-
panied, we may not doubt, with pageantry and ceremonial
as gorgeous in its kind as had attended the marriage of
Giovanni Orseolo. When the Patriarch returned to Rialto
and gave account of what had happened, it was the immediate
wish of Vitale to lay down his temporary office. But the
people would not have it so, xmless his brother, the Arch-
bishop, consented to take his place for a longer period. So

THE ADRIATIC WON 53

we gaze through the mists of time at a spectacle providing
much comment of a sarcastic kind on the designs and theories
of the reformer Flabianico. For fourteen months an Orseolo
performed co-jointly, although against his inclination, the
functions of Doge and Patriarch. The supreme authority
both of Church and State was vested in one man. When at
last he prevailed upon the electors to release him from his
double task, and to let him keep only the single one to which
he had been anointed, he was succeeded by the exponent of
the new ideas.

Flabianico reigned for ten years in an uninspiring
manner. He was, however, quite consistent and carried out
his rigid principles rigidly. It was in accordance with his
temperament and with his thoughts that the vigoroiis and
out-reaching foreign and colonial policies of the Orseoli
regime were discontinued. The greater European states
without were at war with one another, and Venice was at
peace by no special accomplishment of her own. It was a
free time for revisers of the constitution to go into details
of custom and precedent and to draw up regulations and
create offices that should bring aU the energies of the govern-
ment more into line. It was also a time when some much-
needed reforms of ecclesiastic and other matters were carried
out. The Doge himself desired the revival of the assessors
of his own office. So for Flabianido's particular counselling
and curbing, Domenico Selvo and Vitale Faliero were
appointed. Both these nobles attained later to the Dogeship.
But the immediate successor of Flabianico was Domenico
CoNTAEiNi. Nothing need be written of this Contarini, al-
though he reigned for nearly thirty years. Upon his decease,
the popular voice was lifted high for Domenico Selvo, and
the records of his election provide a striking picture of the
methods of Venetian voting, even after a time when Flabianico
had done his best to make aU poUtical acts affairs of strict
formality confined to aristocratic parliaments.

The funeral of the late Doge Contarini was yet proceeding,
when the population of Venice swarmed in barks and armed
galleys to the Lido and, led by a Tribune, gave loud voice
to the cry : " Noi volemo Domenigo Selvo e lo laudiamo."

54 THE DOGES OF VENICE

The person thus acclaimed was lifted high on the shoulders
of noble supporters, who, walking amid a turbulent throng
of people of all ranks, carried their burden to a gondola.
Directly Selvo found himself aboard, he began to remove
his shoes. He could only walk barefoot across the Piazzetta
to the Church of St. Mark, whither he knew he was being
transported.

Then took place a wonderful demonstration of popular
joy and fervour. As the throng of crafts which followed the
boat of Selvo moved over the lagoon, one, Domenico Tino,
began to intone the Te Deum and from all sides his song
was taken up by glad, melodious voices. Other " graces "
and the laud of the Prince followed. A rhythmic undertone
of gently splashed waters accompanied the chant of voyagers
and oarsmen. Landing in Rialto, Selvo was greeted by a
group of the clergy and officials of St. Mark. There came
to meet him also the members of the provisional executive,
always appointed at a vacation of the ducal throne. Embraced,
congratvilated, jostled and pressed upon, Selvo entered the
great church and prostrated himself in prayer. Rising, he
approached the altar, subscribed before it his promissione,
and received the standard of the Republic. Being after-
wards escorted to the Ducal Palace, he took there the oath of
allegiance required of him in the name of the people.

Though a man of great activity and promptitude, a clever
admiral and a valiant fighter, Selvo had artistic tastes, and
a featiure of his reign was the rapid progress made in the
rearing of the Byzantine fane of St. Mark, on the sites of the
early San Marco and stiU earlier San Teodoro, which had been
cleared some years before. Selvo embellished the Ducal
Palace also in the Byzantine manner, and substituted stone
for the woodwork which was stLU conspicuous in the building,
despite the warning of the fire. During many reigns the
offerings and prizes of marbles, gold and precious stones, with
which San Marco caijie to be so richly encrusted, had been
pouring into Venice from the East, but in that of Selvo a
more determined collection and selection of Eastern treasures
was made, and a greater activity fostered in composing and
executing mosaic pictures, and putting into place, both

THE ADRIATIC WON 55

in the palace and the temple, the various fragments that
constituted in the end the gorgeous harmony of the whole.

Much of the decoration undertaken by Selvo must have
been designed to make the pink mansion on the lagoon
resemble as nearly as possible the white palaces on the
Bosphorus ; for there came to this Doge a Byzantine bride,
sent to him by the Greek Emperor. Whether a daughter of
the previous and a sister of the reigning Suzerain, or only
the child of a high baron of the Empire, Theodora came
richly dowered with land and personal possessions, but we
do not know if she were a gift the Prince of Venice received
with personal gladness, as well as with official gratification.
He seems certainly to have had a sure instinct for the gorgeous
and the fastidious. However it was, Selvo had but little time
in which to grew either fond or tired of Theodora. It is the
legend of their marital association, that the Doge had been
four years on the throne before he married the Grecian, about
the time of his departure for the siege of Durazzo, and that
during his absence she not only flaunted unbecoming eastern
habits in the sight of the more rigorous and frugal western
peoples, but indulged herself voluptuously, in contempt of
her duty to her lord and master. There are circumstances
to be referred to that render this tradition questionable.
There is, however, no question that imder Doge Selvo the
Venetian fleet was at this time again in requisition as a strong
arm for Constantinople in holding her dependencies in Thessaly,
in particular the well-fortified port of Durazzo. But it was
not alone enthusiasm for the Greek cause that seat Selvo
forth in the years 1081, 1082 and 1083 to raise the siege of
Durazzo and to oppose himself to the Duke of Apuha, fleet to
fleet, in the endeavour to prevent his possession of the islands
of Cephalonia and Corfu. For this Duke of Apulia was none
other than Robert Guiscard, the Norman, who, having gained
yifith his brother Roger the mastery of Sicily and southern
Italy, had constituted himself dictator to the Papacy, and had
successfully disputed with Henry iv of Germany the Empire of
the West. What time William the Norman was estabhshing
himself in England, Robert of that race was in f uU force of his
design to join East to West and make himself a veritable Caesar.

56 THE DOGES OF VENICE

But for all the flattery of the Imperial gift to Venice of a
Byzantine bride for the Doge, the Venetians cared less about
defeating the plan of Robert Guiscard to pave the way for his
own accession to the Eastern throne by placing a puppet Grecian
pretender on it, than they did about defending their Dalmatian
and lUyrian possessions from a Norman conquest. The
" little Venice " poUcy inaugurated by Doge Flabianico had
been continued loilg enough to make the tenure of the so-named
" Doge of Daknatia " far less secure than it had been in OrseoH
times. Now, all were in arms to defend their own, and Doge
Selvo set sail for Durazzo with a good will and glad courage
that he shared with his people. He returned once, twice,
perhaps thrice, to Venice a conqueror. But, too confident
of his own prowess and skill, and too contemptuous of his
opponents' cleverness and courage, he committed at Corfu the
costly and fatal mistake of supposing a double rout of the enemy
to constitute a victory for himself so complete that he could
afford to send home more than half his fleet, and to watch
from a snug harbour the dislocated movements of the pre-
sumably defeated Normans. Selvo was both a magnificent
fighter and a good tactician. The success of his first encounter
with the Norman fleet in 1081 had been due to his strategy.
But at Corfu he underrated the ability of his foe, and gave
an advantage to the Normans, which those notable fighting-
men were swift to follow up.

The Doge came back to a Venice where there were many
to excuse his fault and recall his earlier benefactions to his
native isles, but it was a Venice angered by the Greek im-
potence and the Greek selfishness which had again and again
foiled Venetian attack and undone Venetian plans in the con-
test which had been entered on mainly on behalf of Greece.
Venetians were incensed, too, by the Byzantine luxury and the
Byzantine contemptuousness of the Dogaressa. Poor Theo-
dora ! She has long borne a reputation in Venetian story
that would seem not to pertain only if at all to her. Historians,
from Dandolo to Romanin, have fastened upon her the de-
scription given by that pious ecclesiastic and fierce zealot
for monastic discipline Pietro Damiani, of a Byzantine Princess
married by a Venetian Doge in Constantinople, who brought

THE ADRIATIC WON 57

to the capital on the lagoons the extraordinary customs of
eating her food, after it had been cut up for her by her eunuch
attendants, with a two-pronged fork of gold, washing her
hands in perfumes and unguents, scenting her rooms and
clothing, and, worst of all, bathing her whole body almost
daily in dew. To Theodora has always been applied
Damiani's monkish moral of the coming upon the Princess of
a loathsome disease which gave her tortures proportionately as
horrible as her late enjoyments had been delicious, and which
was the just punishment of her delicate habits and of an un-
cleanness which was not of the body.

This malady broke out on her fair person and making her
first disgusting to her waiting-women — at least the Venetian
ones — eventually carried her to her tomb. But since
Damiani is authoritatively stated to have died in February
1072, and Selvo is not supposed to have married Theodora
until about 1080 and, even if he married her much earlier,
it is impossible that she could have died before Damiani did,
the tale of sinful luxiiry and its judgment of foul disease, so
diligently exploited by many writers in various periods as
the true and particular history of Theodora, must have been
told of another ducal consort ; unless, indeed, the paragraph
attributed to Damiani from the days of Dandolo to those
of Romanin was not written until after that ecclesiastic's
death, and placed subsequently among his collected works.
This is most unlikely. On the other hand, it is very likely
that it was the earlier Byzantine — the bride of Giovanni Orseolo
and the victim with him of the plague — who first scandalized
the ascetics and rigorists of Italy by her eastern refinements.

Mr. F. C. Hodgson seems to be the only historian of any
country or age who has noted the discrepancy in attributing
to Selvo's Dogaressa habits that could only have been chronicled
of an earlier princess. By an undoubted slip of the pen, Mr.
Hodgson calls Orseolo's consort Martha, but he is exact enough
in discarding Damiani's story as that of Theodora. We need
not doubt, however, that Theodora was more luxurious — it
might be said more highly civilized — than the western women
of her time. So also must the Princess Maria Orseoli have
been more luxurious and more civilized than the people she

58 THE DOGES OF VENICE

came among after her marriage to the Doge's son, who. was
quite correctly referred to by Damiani as Dux Venetiarum,
since he had been early appointed a joint-Doge with his father.
Nevertheless, against the application of Damiani's account to
Maria, is the fact that she most certainly died of the plague.
The discrepancy, however, lies more in the telling than the
tale. If not a crabbed notion of the monk's alone, that her
disease was the direct punishment of particular habits, it was
likely enough the echo of a belief in Venice that the Princess
Maria personally brought the " judgment " on the Dogado of
its first epidemic of plague, and that her plague-spot and the
pest throughout the city were both immediate consequences of
evil ways, particularly of the sins of preferring eastern luxury
to western hardihood, and of desiring to live daintily as in king's
palaces, instead of practising the rude manners proper to a
daughter of a Republic.

In any case, we may cotmt the Dogaressa Theodora a luxury-
loving woman who died before her time, possibly of some ob-
jectionable complaint that was an eastern heritage. Her
death preceded the deposition of her Doge, and probably took
place before his home-coming from his last and most disastrous
expedition in his country's service. He fell from his high
estate as he had mounted the throne, alone. Neither Theodora's
dower, nor the gorgeous ways of her, helped him to any abiding
comfort, although her coming to Venice had marked the zenith
of his accomplishment and fame.

CHAPTER V
THE DOGES OF THE CRUSADES

A.D. 1085 TO I 173

VITALE FALIERO had been the leader of the faction
accusing Doge Selvo of incapacity and negligence
in the war against Robert Guiscard. He continued the
campaign after gaining recognition from the Greek Emperor
Alexis, as Doge of Dalmatia and Croatia. For a critic
of the methods of Selvo's warfare, Faliero's own fighting was
singularly ineffective. Fortunately for his credit as a general,
the death of Robert put an end to the Greek need of Venetian
aid, and Faliero sailed for Rialto, arriving there at a time
when the completion to a point of that restoration of St.
Mark's Church which Selvo had vigorously aided, revealed
to all and sundry that the remains of the Evangelist had
disappeEired.

This was a great mystery, but the explanation of the
authorities was prompt. The corpse had been hidden from
the flames at the time of the fire by the pious care of the Doge
(Orseolo) and the Dean, and these guardians had failed
before their deaths to hand on to their successors the secret
they had shared. Sceptics of later days have thought and said
that both coffin and corpse had been consumed by the flames.
That this was also a popular belief at the time, is proved by
the great consternation of men's minds when they faced the
fact that though many gifts had been added to the great
Venetian treasure-house, its most priceless gem was gone.
It was soon seen by the Doge and other authorities, both
ecclesiastical and lay, that such a loss must be quickly repaired
if Venetians were to be kept in heart and good courage. More-

59

6o THE DOGES OF VENICE

over, a discovery of the Saint could not but popularize any
government instrumental in bringing it about.

By command of Faliero, therefore, a three days' fast and
service of intercession was held in the great sanctuary, and
there on the 25th of June 1094, as people, clergy. Bishop and
Doge knelt in profound devotion for the singing of the Mass,
a piece of tapestry covering a pilaster dropped to the ground,
and an arm was stretched out from behind the marble paneUing.
This arm being quickly recognized as that of the Saint, the
joy of all assembled was very great. Both the simples who
took the apparition for a miracle of Heaven and the gentles
of politics and ecclesiasticism who had hung the tapestry
and devised the mechanism that worked so well, were delighted
at the outcome of their prayers and fastings. Fears were
pacified and hope came again to Venice. The re-found Saint
was placed in a marble tomb in the crypt of the Basilica,
to be found again in March 1811, when proof, if proof were
needed, of the actuality of the apparition in Doge Faliero's
reign was provided by the discovery in the burial-place of
coins, of a ring of gold lacking a stone, with other small objects
and a note of the event as occurring in the year 1094, the
8th day of October, Vitale Faliero, Doge.

So great was the renown achieved for the city by this
marvellous happening, that, among other pilgrims to the
Byzantine shrine came the Emperor Henry iv of Germany,
who was received with aU the honour befitting his rank.
Lodged in the Ducal Palace and feasted by the Doge, he
expressed a frank admiration for the magnificent religious
edifices, as well as for the naval construction yards, the com-
mercial resources and the political institutions of the Republic.
Yet the prosperous and independent Venetians, with their pros-
perous and independent Doge, trusted too much to political
institutions and ducal rights, while they thought too little of
domestic economies and disregarded too contemptuously natiiral
and violent causes of life's ills. In making a compact with the
vassal town of Loredo, Doge Faliero did not forget to reserve
to himself the right of hunting in the forests and fishing in
the streams of the Lore^iese, but he lived improvidently,
and approved a policy of display rather than one of thrift.

THE DOGES OF THE CRUSADES 6i

So, when plague and famine came to Venice, her " institutions "
could not save her from dire misery and want. Faliero himself
fell a victim to the pestUence. He was buried beneath the portico
of the Church of the Evangelist, and the record made : " He
brought to light the hidden body of St. Mark." But before
this Breve or his longer epitaph could be engraved, the people
who had suffered hunger under his administration ran
tumultuously to his grave, flinging on it wine and bread,
and crying out in wild barbaric irony : " Satiate thyself now,
who in life would not provide or make abundance for the
people ! "

The sumptuous coffining of St. Mark had not preserved
the city from famine ! Neither had the parure of her civil
liberties and sovereign rights made Venice " all glorious
within."

Wheh Doge Vitale Michieli (1096) at last determined to
cast in his lot with those other princes and governors of Europe
who had already sent expeditions to war against the Turks
in Palestine, he convoked a popular assembly and addressed
his cotmcillors and subjects in words that left no doubt as
to the character of the motives that prompted him and all
Venetians to join in the First Crusade.

The eloquence of Michieh i was of a different kind from
that which had first urged the barons of France, Germany
and Flanders to take the Cross, and later inspired the conquer-
ing Godfrey of Boulogne to refuse in Jerusalem a golden
diadem, choosing rather to press on his brows a crown of
thorns. The affliction of Peter the Hermit for the miseries
of the Christians in Palestine, and the shame of that enthusiast
of supreme devotion, for the dishonour done his Lord by the
subjugation of the Holy Land to Mahommedan rule and
Mahommedan sacrilege, had not stirred Venetians as it had
fired Normans and Franks to attempt a great reprisal. The
oppression of the famine and the poverty in FaUero's time had,
in part, prevented the men of Venice from being sorry for
the oppressions of other peoples, or from supporting the
expense of a relief force. They had also been held back
from the great adventure of chivalry and religion by their
devotion to the Greek alliance. It had been the policy at

62 THE DOGES OF VENICE

Constantinople to discourage any zeal for repelling and
dispossessing the infidel Turks, for the reason that the schis-
matic Greeks feared the development of an equal zest in
punishing and dislodging themselves. In the end, however,
the mettle of Venetians was tested with the rest. But
Jerusalem had been taken, Godfrey solemnly crowned there,
and the beUicose and devout of many nations stirred to fresh
ardours, before Doge Michieli i proclaimed to his people the
sanctity of the high enterprise of the Crusade, and the con-
venience, even the necessity, of the men of Venice taking part
in it. Religion, pohtics and commercial considerations, he
said, all called to the Holy War. It was to be seen how
Pisans and Genoese had forestalled Venetians in the business
of carrying men and munitions to the front. It was not
becoming for Venetians to remain passive spectators of the
aggrandizement of others.

Loud applause greeted the Doge's peroration, and from all
sides in the large assembly came offers of personal service
and of goods and money for the equipment of a fleet worthy of
the Republic and fitted for the high purpose to which it would
be destined. So short a time was the expedition preparing
that the government must have laid their plans long before
the Doge found the moment propitious to commend them
to the assembly. Not content with home contributions, two
commissioners were dispatched to Dahnatia to coUect ships
and men from that dependency. Then came the solemn act
of appointing captains of the host going forth to war. Sur-
rounded by his officers and councillors. Doge Vitale Michieli
attended the Church of St. Mark in state, and there, after cele-
bration of the Mass and in the presence of a great concourse
of his people, he consigned the standard of the Republic to his
son Giovanni Michieli, the Patriarch of Grado having first
bestowed on the Bishop of Castello, Enrico Contarini, the
banner of the Cross. This investiture of the Bishop with
the name and paraphernalia of a military command, shows
that the religious nature of the war to be waged was upper-
most in Venetian minds at least during the ceremony in San
Marco. It was the religious character of it that was again
uppermost when, just before sailing. Bishop Contarini repaired

THE DOGES OF THE CRUSADES 63

to the Church of S. Niccolo del Lido, which had been a pious
donation to Venice of his father, Doge Domenico Contarini.
Invoking the grace of God on high, the Bishop prayed to
bring back to his country the body of St. Nicholas glorioso
in terra ed in mare. Yet it was love of glory, pomp and power,
rather than piety and religious fervour, that drew to the
sands of the Lido, when the armada finally spread sail, a
great concourse of excited Venetians, who saluted the emerging
vessels with shouts of satisfaction and prognostications of
victory.

How Bishop Contarini found the body of St. Nicholas the
Great and another Nicholas, uncle to the first, on the Isle
of Myra ; how he bore them away from there ; how Giovanni
Michieli consulted at Joppa with the princes Guarnerius of
Greis and Tancred of Sicily as to a combined mode of
action for the support of the advantages already gained by
King Godfrey of Jerusalem ; and how both Contarini and
Michieli presented to Godfrey marvellous and extraordinary
gifts of gold, silver and precious stones from the Doge of
Venice, cannot be told in detail. The incidents are not
part of the life-story of Michieli i. By tracing the steps of
Giovanni, as he recognized in Baldwin, son of Godfrey, the
hereditary King of Jerusalem, and as he met, at first with bland
parley, but afterwards with sharp fighting and a decisive rout,
a fleet of Pisan mercenaries dispatched by the Greek Emperor
to intercept his course, we see foundations laid for the career
of another Doge Michieli, even for Domenico, the most chival-
rous and the most successful of all the Crusader Doges. But
we should not lose sight of the later achievements of Doge
Vitali. He appeared again with aU fitting pomp and circum-
stance when this first of the Venetian crusading expeditions
returned to the lagoons on 6th December iioo. The day was
St. Nicholas' Day. Some leisurely tacking or a prolonged
anchorage in the Gulf of Venice had no doubt ensured the
fleet's arrival on that anniversary, but the great crowd
gathered on the quay of Castello as little suspected any
management of the coincidence as they questioned the genuine-
ness of the relics from Myra. Most devoutly and truly the
Venetians believed that St. Nicholas, " glory of the earth and

64 THE DOGES OF VENICE

sea," and his relative of the same cognomen, had come among
them.

No Prince of settled state, only adventurous Norman ones,
took personal part in the first Crusade. There had therefore
been no call for the Doge himself to go to the Holy Land.
He was, however, as prompt in action and as ready to war
as his son, and he had commanded a Venetian flotilla that,
at the request of the Countess Matilda of Tuscany, had sailed
up the Po in conjunction with some Ravennese ships of war,
and besieged the town of Ferrara. In thus supporting the
Countess, Michieli i showed himself to be for the Guelphs ;
for the independence of towns and the sovereignty of
small states; for the Pope and an unsettled Italy, against
the GhibeUines and an alien domination. Yet, though in-
clining often to the Guelph cause, Venice was ever GhibeUine
in her determination to resist ecclesiastical interference with
lay decisions.

After the Ravennese and the Countess Matilda, the next
allies of Michieli — allies of an hour — were the Hungarians
who, like the Venetians themselves, had suffered much from
the Norman incursions on the Istrian and Dalmatian coasts.
With a rough and formidable horde, Doge Vitale went forth
to give the Normans battle in their own particular haunts.
Brindisi and Monopoli were seized and the surrounding country
fired and put to the sword. These were events of the fifth
and last year of the reign of the first Michieli. He did not long
survive to wear the honours of his chief campaign.

The Doge who succeeded — Ordelafo Faliero — was
active in the Holy Land as well as in Dalmatia. Valorous
in the field, he was also prompt in peace-time to provide for
outbreaks of hostilities. Moreover, he was pious and artistic,
as is shown by his bringing to Venice from the East the Pala
d'oro, a slab of gold which covers the altar of St. Mark, and
by his going in state with his Dogaressa — a young kinswoman
of Matilda of Tuscany— to take from the vessel which had
brought them to Venice from Constantinople, the bones of
St. Stephen the Martyr, a fragment of the True Cross, and
other relics, which in the procession by gondola and on foot,
from the seashore to their shrine, were borne in their ancient

THE DOGES OF THE CRUSADES 65

casket on the shoulders of the Doge himself. In this Faliero's
time was commenced the famous Arsenal which became so soon,
and has remained so long, one of the sights of Venice. While
encouraging his forces by his own prowess and activity in a
battle against the Hungarians before Zara, Ordelafo Faliero
received his death-wound. Like Doge Pietro Candiano, he
died fighting for his country, and of him another Doge (Dan-
dolo) said : Most glorious days terminated with his life. Glorious
days also followed. Yet Faliero was deeply regretted, and
records are particular of the tears shed at his funeral. A man
of battles, he wels yet a Doge beloved.

DoMENico MiCHiELi was perhaps not so lovable, nor so
popularly admirable. He was, however, truly great. To
recklessness he added calculation ; to activity, judgment ;
to idealism, promptitude. He responded in person to the
direct call of Pope Calixtus 11, who in order to cement the
peace of Europe — that peace which followed the war between
the Papacy and the Empire, called the War of the Investiture —
enjoined upon all Christian rulers of the West the necessity of
banding themselves together for the rescue of their fellow-
Christians in Moslem lands. In this Crusade the reigning
monarchs Louis vii of France and the Emperor Conrad iii
took part. It was fitting, therefore, for the Doge of Venice to
be himself in the field.

Not in the Ducal Palace, but in the Church of St. Mark,
did the assembly meet Li which, upon the exhortation of the
Doge, it was resolved that Venice should take the Cross. The
ceremony began with the singing before the High Altar of
the Melss of the Holy Spirit. Then the Patriarch of Grado
read aloud to the people the letter from the Pope to the
Doge which asked for the aid of a fleet. This reading finished,
Michieli il rose in his place of honour and preached to his
people a famous discourse upon the needs and advantages
of the Crusade. His sermon, a veritable triumph of
oratory, made many of its hearers decide, against their
reasoned principles, to commit the magnificent folly of
forsaking the tangible good of well-ordered civic and
domestic life, for the intangible benefit of following a sublime
impulse. In that year 1121, there were men of mind and
5

66 THE DOGES OF VENICE

substance in Venice, who feared that the five years' truce,
recently i concluded with King Stephen ii of Hungary,
could not last unless the Republic made it the first task of
fleet and army to protect Dalmatia. There were others who
pointed out that the new Emperor of the East, John Calojanni,
had not yet confirmed the ancient privileges enjoyed by the
Venetians in the Byzantine dominions, and that the appear-
ance in eastern waters of such a fleet as Pope Calixtus asked
them to dispatch, could not but rouse Greek jealousy and
suspicion. Against all these fears, the words of Doge Michieli ii
prevailed.

After speaking of the miseries of the Christian population
in Palestine ; of the imprisonment being endured by King
Baldwin ; of the insufficiency of that monarch's forces and
his imminent peril, Michieli recalled the fame of those who
had gone on the first expedition. The advantages then
obtained were to be obtained again, and priceless service
would be rendered to Religion and Christianity by the sending
of the fleet desired. Thus far with balanced statements ;
then he became rhetorical ! " The entire kingdom of Jeru-
salem is in strife," he cried, " and the Holy Pontiff exhorts
and conjures you not to allow the Faith to perish in those
regions, through its distresses. Devote then, to that end,
the naval power that God has given you ! What will not
be the immortal glory and the splendour redounding to your
name ? What will not be your merit in God's sight ? You
win be the admiration of Europe and of Asia. The banner
of St. Mark will float triumphantly in those distant parts.
New profits, new founts of greatness will accrue to our most
noble country. And who among you cares so little for these
things, as not to desire the ever wider extension of an Empire,
subduing other powers and spreading over the sea ? In-
flamed by the holy zeal of your reUgion, moved with com-
passion for your feUows and elevated as an example for all
Europe, take up your arms. Think of the honours and the
guerdons ! TMnk of the triumph to be ! Think of the
benediction of Heaven ! "

In charge of affairs at home, Michieli ii left his sons
Lucchino and Domenico. Forty galleys of various form and

THE DOGES OF THE CRUSADES 67

draught — mostly transports — twenty-eight great warships of
a hundred oars apiece, and four bigger vessels still — the
Dreadnoughts of their day — composed his armada.
" Picturesque " and " splendid " were among the epithets
used by spectators to describe the pageant of many-hued
sails and hulls that floated grandly on the blue Adriatic
beneath the golden sunshine. Colour ran riot on the day
of the sailing of Doge Domenico Michieli. Warriors and
pilgrims, infantry and cavalry, were conveyed with an ease
and a display no other nation of Europe could have emulated.
The demonstration greatly alarmed the inhabitants of Bari —
the first port touched at — and the Doge had to give assurances
that he would allow no molestations. Sail was then set for
Corfu, where, after a siege which rendered command of the
harbours to the Venetians, the fleet remained for the rest
of the winter. In the early spring, trumpet-caUs and a
ceremonial invocation of Divine Help gave signal for the
weighing of anchors. The islands of Chio, Lesbos and Rhodes
were successively devastated, and no check was experienced
until Cyprus was reached. There the Doge had news of the
sailing of an Egyptian fleet to the aid of the Saracens in the
Holy Land. Steering first for Joppa (Jaffa), this fleet had
changed its course and proceeded towards Ascalon. Thirsting
for encounter with the enemy, the Venetians also came
about, and the Doge held a council of war. It was decided
to form his ships into two divisions, one of which was to make
feint of going on to Joppa, while the other lingered on the
high seas as if it were a little squadron of merchant vessels
carrjdng pilgrims from Cyprus. This manoeuvre being accom-
plished, the misled Saracens came on in pursuit of what they
took to be easy prizes. Night fell before an attack could
be made, and when the dawn broke over the quiet sea,
the Saracens found themselves face to face with the might
of the Venetian navy. No time for councils of war in the
Egyptian squadron. The surprise was complete, and upon
the instant of day, one of the great Venetians galleys, the
Doge himself being on board, bore swiftly down upon the
vessel of the enemy's captain, and, dashing into it, half sank
it by the impact. On swept the other ships of Michieli's

68 THE DOGES OF VENICE

fleet ; the engagement became general, and the fight so fast
and furious, that the calm waters of the Mediterranean were
dyed deeply with Saracen blood and covered thickly with
floating bodies of swarthy slain.

The victory of Michieli was completed by the immediate
seizure of some of the enemy's warships and the taking, as
his fleet sailed on to Tolemaide, of many coracles laden with
precious merchandise, silks, materials of war, drugs and
spices. When the news of the arrival of the Doge at Tole-
maide reached Jerusalem, the Patriarch, the high officers of
the imprisoned Baldwin, together with other bishops and
barons of the kingdom, met together and dispatched am-
bassadors to greet and congratulate Michieli at the port. This
mission was received by the Doge with becoming ceremony
and feeUng. In response to the offers of the ambassadors,
of any attentions and civilities that His Serenity would regard
as expressions of the kingdom's indebtedness and of the
general gratitude of the Christians in those parts, Michieli
asked for the fulfilment of the desire which ever since he
had quitted Venice had filled his heart. This desire was to
visit the sacred places sanctified by the Sacraments and
mysteries of our Salvation. Nothing, Michieli averred, could
give him greater gratification than to repair to these spots
accompanied by the many illustrious lords and officers who
sent him greetings, and who should be witnesses of the
fulfilment of his vow to reach Jerusalem. The desire of the
Doge being granted, Michieli left his fleet under other command,
and went to receive the honours and respects awaiting him
in the sacred city, as well as to do there all the reverences
and humilities proper for a Christian Prince approaching
the most holy shrines of his faith.

The piety of this Doge, and his concern for the renown
of Venetian achievement, were further most clearly demon-
strated in an oration dehvered by him before the civil and
ecclesiastical chiefs of the government of Jerusalem. In this
speech, Michieli declared that in leaving his coimtry and
steering his great armada to those distant shores, he had had
no purpose more deeply at heart than that of helping and
solacing his feUow-Christians and aiding in the establishment

THE DOGES OF THE CRUSADES 69

of the Christian dominion in those parts. The reHgious
fervour for which the Venetians had always been distinguished,
they desired to prove now by their deeds. In fine, they
would be now, as always, prompt to devote all their means
and all their forces to the development of the grandeur, the
power and the glory of the Christian Commonwealth.

In a council of war which followed the visit of Michieli,
it was long debated whether the strong seaport of Tyre or the
less-guarded inland city of Ascalon shoiild be first besieged.
Eventually the question was decided by lot, and when the
boy who was set to draw the fateful slip from the urn of chance,
handed to the Patriarch the one on which Tyre was written,
the Metropolitan, with the other lords of state assembled,
proceeded at once to Tolemaide, where the Venetian fleet still
lay in harbour. In the Church of the Holy Cross at that port
it was solemnly promised and sworn, that in all cities subjected
by the aid of Michieli's fleet to the dominion of King Baldwin
and his barons, a territory containing a piazza (market-square)
a bath-house and a bakery should be ceded to the Venetians
in perpetuity without payment of any impost. It was further
arranged that the King of Jerusalem and his lords should
pay annually to the Doge of Venice on the Feast-Day of
Saint Peter and Saint Paul, the sum of three hundred
bezants.

The Venetians on their part were to pay some minor duties
when they brought pilgrims or the merchandise of foreigners
into the harbours of Palestine, and if they had contentions
with persons not of their own nationality, they were to submit
themselves with their opponents to the jurisdiction of the King
of Jerusalem. When, however, both litigants were Venetians,
the bailiff of the Doge was to pass judgment. For all his
enthusiasm and visionary ambition, Michieli proved himself in
Palestine, as he had shown himself on Rialto, a good bargainer.
This was only to say that he was essentially a Venetian and
a Doge as clever at contract as any of his forerunners. His
immediate predecessor, Ordelafo Faliero, had also combined
the zeal of a Crusader with the cleverness of a man of business,
and had, after his acquisition of Sidon, obtained grants at
Acre which Michieli did not fail now to get confirmed. These

70 THE DOGES OF VENICE

grants included a portion of the market-place and surrounding
neighbourhood in Acre. ■'

Having concluded the preliminary negotiations, Michieli
sailed for Tyre, where he formed a junction with the army from
Jerusalem. Although both as engineers and as fighting men the
assailants were the superiors of the defenders, the fortfess held
out for many days. Hot attacks, sorties and skirmishes with
would-be relief parties were of frequent occurrence, and the
spirits of the Venetian allies became depressed by the long
waiting. The arrival of the Norman Prince of Tripoli gave
fresh courage to the besiegers, but hope ebbed again when it
was rumoured that an army from Damascus and a fleet from
Egypt were coming to raise the siege of the redoubtable city.
It was a black time for the Christian host, and in the hours
of their suspense the nationalities began to jar on one another.
Whether from spite or misunderstanding is not to be said, but
the Franks accused the Venetians of planning to desert them.
The nearness of their fleet gave cause for imagining that
the naval allies might at any moipent step aboard their vessels
and push off for the Adriatic. However that may be, the
Doge acted with admirable promptitude in an ugly situation.
Calling his men together, he went with them to the harbour,
and there gave orders for certain planks and portions of rigging
to be detached from each ship and brought back to the camp
as pledges of Venetian loyalty. This chivalric action had a
splendid effect. Better comradeship was at once established,
and courage revived all round. Determination was then
taken to prevent the approach of the reUef expeditions from
Damascus and Alexandria. The Count of Tripoli and the
Constable of Jerusalem marched to the encounter of the land
force, and the Doge sailed with the bulk of his men to intercept
the Saracenic armada. Some parties of Venetians, as of
Franks, were left before the city as hostages of the re-junction
of all forces, and both army and fleet returned eventually
without having drawn a bow or hurled a projectile. The
Damascenes had retreated precipitately at the news of the
advance of the Christian host, and although the Doge had sailed
within view of Alexandria he had espied nowhere any move-
ment on the part of the Egyptian fleet. Once more, the allies

THE DOGES OF THE CRUSADES 71

sat down before the impregnable walls of Tyre, and the holders
of the citadel, becoming desperate in their hunger and generally
forlorn condition, made at last a furious sortie in which they
attempted to set fire to the great tower of assault which the
Franlcs and Venetians had biiilt over against the Tyrian gates.
Their attempt failed through the prompt action of the Crusaders
as a body, and of one intrepid Frank in particular. The in^
cendiaries were caught and hanged, but the garrison stiU held
out stoutly, and sufferings increased among the Christian
troops. Yet, nothing daunted, the besiegers applied themselves
to adding to and strengthening their engines of war.

The time spent by the Venetians on this Crusade had now
passed all anterior calculations. Money was giving out, but
so sure was Doge Michieli of ultimate victory and future
gains, that he had leather currency made, which he promised
to redeem in Venice when the war was over.

The city of the purple-seUers was gained at last through
strategy. The King of Damascus having taken courage from
the Christians' long wait for success, approached in force with
the view of relieving the Saracens. Unable to come quite near,
he sent a heartening message by a carrier-dove, whose flight he
trusted would be unobserved. But the white-winged messenger
was noticed against the blue sky, and by a common impulse the
men of Venice set up a shout. The gentle bird was startled.
It hesitated, circled, lost its bearings, fluttered to earth.
Then for the true message of the Saracenic King was substi-
tuted another, also in Arabic, which told the holders of Tyre
to expect no help from Damascus. Capitulation followed.
The defenders sent ambassadors to the Christian camp to treat
for peace. Honourable terms were granted to them, and very
soon the standard of Jerusalem's King, with the baimers of
the Count of Tripoli and of St. Mark, were floating side by side
on the highest tower of Tyre. The city was divided : two parts
for Jerusalem and one for the Doge of Venice, according to the
general compact made before the setting out of the expedition.
It was further decreed that the day of the entry of the Christians
into the city should be kept thereafter as a solemn festival.
A few months later, Baldwin was liberated, and he then con-
firmed, in docxmients even more explicit than the originals, all

72 THE DOGES OF VENICE

the concessions and privileges given to Michieli and his
Venetians at Acre. Three churches were built by the Venetians
on their territory in Tyre, and justiciary and commercial
establishments set up. A bailiff and other high officers
were appointed, who took oaths to adminster the laws of
Venice and other special regulations of the locality with
justice ; the inhabitants of the Venetian sphere had, on their
part, to swear fidelity to the Doge and his successors.

Hardly had Michieli organized the government of his new
colony in Tyre, when news came to him of the not unexpected
investment of certain Dalmatic towns by Stephen, King of
Hungary. At the same time, information was received
concerning various molestations of Venetian traffic and
security by the Emperor Calojanni, who was growing more
and more jealous of a power once subsidiary to, but now
quite independent of, the Grecian Empire.

From Tyre, Michieli sailed with his tried armada and
seasoned handy-men to Europe, touching at Greek islands on
the way and devastating them for booty. Coming to the
Adriatic, he seems not to have sighted Venice, but to have
gone at once to the relief of Dalmatia, where he took back
easily the towns besieged by King Stephen. Reinforcements
from Venice joining him, Michieli turned to complete his
punishment of the Eastern Emperor by an occupation of
Cephalonia. From this point of vantage he so successfully
menaced the Greeks, that Calojanni sent ambassadors to
treat with him for peace. Difficulties arising from the
subtlety and deception of the Greek character prevented a
speedy contract. When terms were at last concluded, the
irritation of the Venetians had been so fine, that a prohibition
went forth in Rialto against the wearing of beards in the
Greek fashion.

It may be imagined in what triumph Doge Michieli returned
to Venice. From the farther and the nearer shores and
islands of the lagoons his people rushed to greet him, to
acclaim his valour and to praise him for his great advancement
of the glory and prosperity of his country. Second only to
their admiration of their Doge's prowess was their wonder
at the spoils of his conquests — the precious marbles, the

THE DOGES OF THE CRUSADES 73

splendid stuffs and the sacred relics. Ah, yes, these relics
were treasures indeed for Venice ! Though far from rivalling
St. Mark or St. Nicholas, the remains of St. Isidor and
St. Donatus were good to attract ceremonial visitations of
the Doge and foreign princes, and to demand profitable
reverences from the devout of Venice and many distant lands.

Some months of quiet, wise administration followed the
return of Michieli, and then the Terror Gr^ecorum and Laus
Venetorum, els his epitaph designated him, withdrew from
the pomp and circumstance that had never pleased him half
so well as had the activities and responsibilities of his office,
and retired to the monastery of San Giorgio. Perhaps he
felt already the approach of dissolution ; perhaps he suffered
from some ailment contracted in the East. In any case, he
died a few months after his resignation ; died while his
popularity was at height, ani& while his people still thought
with pride and gratitude of his dramatic military successes ;
still honoured him els a ruler of great probity and wisdom.

The Doges who followed him, Pietro Polani and
DoMENico MoROSiNi, respectively gave to Venice eighteen
and seven and a half years of " glorious government," but
though men of honour and capacity, they were worthy officials
rather than great personages. They reigned at a time when
the actions and projects of Giovanni Michieli had welded the
dominions of Venice into a compact whole, and had inspired
Venetians with such confidence in their country's destiny
that the islanders acted as one man in all their enterprises,
both of war and of trade.

Doge Domenico Morosini left his country strong in many
political and commercial treaties with Italian and Syrian
cities. Among them, the compacts with the Prince of
Antioch and with Wilham, son of the Repubhc's former
bitter enemy, Roger, King of the Two SiciUes, were the most
recent. Yet in spite of so many arrangements and alliances,
war was the first business of Vitale Michieli, who succeeded
to the ducal throne in 1156.

The Patriarch of Aquileia had greatly resented a bull of
Pope Adrian iv — the only Englishman who ever occupied
the papal chair — which subjected all Dalmatia to the See

74 THE DOGES OF VENICE

of Grado, and he had gone against the Venetian Arch-
bishop [Enrico Dandolo] with a great fleet. Dandolo took
refuge on Rialto, and the Doge's revenge upon the invading
prelate was swift and formidable. He seized many of the
AquUeian ships and fighting men, and brought the Arch-
bishop himself and twelve of his canons to Venice. The
Friulian lords and chiefs who had assisted the invader were
pursued with utmost fury ; many of them, and their castles
too, being ruthlessly destroyed.

The punishnlent of the ecclesiastics was milder, but more
insulting. Liberated after a short imprisonment, the penalty
was laid upon the Metropolitan of sending every year to the
Doge of Venice twelve loaves of bread, together with twelve
boar pigs and a great ox — figures of the twelve canons and
their Archbishop !

These barbaric emblems were solemnly received on Maundy
Thursday by the Doge and the nobles of Venice assembled
in the Chamber of the Piovega, then given over to the people
to be hunted round the city, in sign of the fate supposedly
deserved by all enemies of Venice in general and by the
Archbishop of Aquileia and his canons in particular. A
further curious feature of the proceedings was the building
up and breaking down of little castles made with sticks or
logs, to typify the demolished strongholds of the Friulians.
These ceremonies were performed annually until the time of
Doge Andrea Gritti, the middle of the sixteenth century —
just on four hundred years. From the year 1420, however,
when the temporal power of the Bishop of Aquileia became
extinct, the tribute was paid out of the Venetian treasury,
in order that the people might not be deprived of a much-
enjoyed diversion. In 1550 both the hunting of the pigs and
the demolishing of the castles were put an end to, and a
commission appointed to provide a method of rendering the
festival more dignified and fitting. The day's celebrations
consisted thereafter in a simple visit of the Doge to the
Piovega Chamber, and the decapitation of an ox by a member
of the Guild of the Smiths. This rueful performance appears
to have been retained in the interests of the forgers of sword-
blades, as a sort of public trial of the temper of their weapons.

THE DOGES OF THE CRUSADES 75

The peace which followed the war of the second Vitale
Michieli, was celebrated by the marriage of the two sons of the
Doge — Niccolo and Leonardo — to Hungarian Princesses. Some
sharp fighting and many determined assertions of Venetian
authority had preceded the negotiations. Even so, the peace
did not last long. It was otherwise with a later expedition,
which began with even more promise and advertisement than
had ushered the famous war-adventure of his father, the great
Doge Domenico. This later expedition was against the
Greek Emperor Emmanuel Commenos, who, angered first by
the fraternizing of his erstwhile allies with his enemies the
Sicilians, and subsequently by the refusal of his own overtures
to each to make war with him on the other, had dealt
treacherously with the Venetian traders at the Golden Horn,
confining the whole colony oi them in dungeons, confiscating
their goods and generally breaking faith and treaty with
them.

Never did the bellicose and negotiatory impulses in Venetians
seem more sharply in contest. The inclination of Michieli
himself was certainly for war, yet he hesitated and listened
to the praters who, imperceptive of the real nature of the poten-
tate they had to deal with, and uninformed by past experiences
of the quality of the Greek mind, urged that there must be
some mistake, that explanations would conie, that negotiations
should be tried. Upon report of the hesitation, Emmanuel
availed himself of it to send a message of regret and an
offer of compensation. Loud was the vaunting of the men
of commerce. Instead of Michieli's war fleet, there was sent
to Constantinople a convoy of merchantmen having aboard
Sebastiano Ziani and Orio Malipiero, present plenipoten-
tiaries and future Doges of Venice.

Arrived in Constantinople, the plenipotentiaries were
affably and ceremonially received, but treachery lurked
behind. Ziani and Malipiero, with the bulk of the Venetian
population, were only preserved from foul play and put safely
on the way back to the Adriatic by the plan of a Venetian
shipbuilder, who, although high in Imperial favour and a
master practising his art most profitably in Constantinople,
disclosed the secret machinations against the liberties and

76 THE DOGES OF VENICE

lives of the Venetian residents and visitors, and decided to
throw in his lot with his threatened feUow-countrymen. The
shipwright had in his yard, just fitting out, a vessel swifter
than any other in the Greek navy. This vessel he offered
as an ark of salvation to his compatriots, and in it Ziani,
Malipiero and himself, with its crew and a load of Venetians
of all conditions, escaped from the vindictive designs of
Emmanuel, making Rialto in twenty-five days. There was no
■hesitation, no talk of bargaining now ; only vowing of vengeance.
The fleet of Vitale, consisting of one hundred galleys
fiUed with fighting men, and twenty transports for ammuni-
tion and provisions, was soon equipped. A contingent of
serviceable vessels from Zara swelled its size. As a prelimin-
ary excursion, the Dalmatic towns of Trau and Ragusa were
recovered once more from Hungarian allegiance. Then the
armada spread sail for Negropont. Here the Greek governor
had the word of the Emperor to be suave, to be specious, to
gain time, and here Michieli fell from the fervour and the
intention of his sailing, and allowed himself to be wheedled
and cozened, not upon the persuasions of the Governor of
Negropont, but upon those of a certain temporizing instinct in
himself, and of a certain faction of compromise which stiU was
strong — as he well knew — in Venice. Only by virtue of the
trader's instinct in him could he have attempted once again
the undoing of the Emperor by sending another set of Am-
bassadors to Constantinople. But this he did, committing
a great error, for, although his Ambassadors returned to him
safely, they had arrived at Scio, where the fleet had been lying
low for some time, to find a scourge of plague among their
men. This scourge followed Michieli's adventure back to
Rialto. And there much public abuse was hurled against the
man who brought the plague to Venice, but who had failed not
only to make opportunities for warring on the Emperor, but
also to seize his advantage against the enemy when it had come.
The Venetians had lost not alone their poured-out treasure for
the equipment of the fleet now so depleted and distressed, but
they had been deprived of much wealth in sons and robbed
of the national glory and greatness that would have been rich
compensation for all private losses.

THE DOGES OF THE CRUSADES 77

y^rK

j)^f A further mistake of Doge Vitale Michieli — second of his
name and fourth of his Una — was his defence of his conduct
in a stormy assembly of the legislature, to which the public
had admittance. Howls, threats and brandished knives
were the answers to his self-justifications. He knew his doom
was fixed, and made a brave submission. Leaving the Ducal
Palace, as his custom was, quite unattended, he proceeded to
vespers at San Zaccaria. Some of the more implacable of the
rioters followed him. One of these, a man of rank and stand-
ing in the city, but one without sense of class-comradeship,
all enraged by the popular frenzy, came up with] the Doge
quite suddenly, and, stretching forward, plunged a dagger
into his breast. The last of the Michieli uttered no reproach,
but did not fall supinely. Rallying by a supreme effort his
oozing strength, he staggered on to the gate of the convent,
where a priest, waiting to receive him, drew him gently in and
administered the Viaticum.

CHAPTER VI
RULERS OF SEA AND LAND

A.D. I 173 TO 1205

IN spite of all the reforms of the times of childless Flabianico
and after, the tendency was stiU strong in the people
of Venice to elect sons of the Doges to the ducal office.
It was also still permitted to proper heirs — at least in the
cases of the Doges who went to the Holy Land — to assist their
fathers in the administration. The forces of human nature and
of circumstance, as also of the character and genius of the
Michieli family, had proved too strong for the dicta of statute-
makers. But now that a Michiel had failed somewhat in his
discharge of the trust committed to him, the time had come to
make the choice of Doges a matter for expert judgment rather
than for popular decision.

The moment was propitious too — or so the aristocratic
families thought — for organizing the legislature, which still
retained its ancient form, or formlessness. In theory, parlia-
ment still consisted of every male adult who from Grado to
Brondolo might choose to propel himself in light skiff or rudely
bound raft, to the Piazza on Rialto, and there shout with the
crowd for a Doge, a war, a loan or a law.

Sebastiano Ziani (1172) was the first Doge elected upon
the new system, which took a commission of three justices
six months to formulate. Its chief provisions were the division
of the city into six wards, and the nomination by each ward
of two representatives of qua,lity and accomplishment, to each
of whom was given the task of electing forty members of the
new legislative body, to be called the Great Council. Each
ward had also to depute one male person of gravity and

o

RULERS OF SEA AND LAND 79

capacity, to make up a Privy Council of six, to replace the
two assessors of the Dogeship who, since they were appointed
by the Doge himself, had never been of much use as checks
on, or guides of the Executive. The 480 members of the
Great Council had, as their first duty, to elect by ballot
37 of their number, who by compUcated processes balloted
for II worthies. These eleven, in their turn, chose forty
(afterwards forty-one) voters, to whom the responsibility fell
of electing the Doge.

When the rival claims of the young Orio Malipiero and
the aged Sebastian© Ziani had long been debated, it was decided
at last to hail Ziani as Doge of Venice. He was presented
to the, people gathered in their hosts in the Basilica of St.
Mark, with the words : " Questo e' il vostro doge se vi piace."
The people replied : " Viva il doge e Dio voglia ch'ei ci procuri
la pace."

After the great loss in men, money and goods which
the abortive war in Greece had brought upon Venice ; after
strife and pestilence ; after " battle, murder and sudden death,"
the Doge to please the people, must be the Doge who would
procure peace. Ziani proved himself a peacemaker indeed.
No hesitating suer for truces he, but a man to deserve good
will because of promptness in attack and defence when need
or honour called ; and because of his large-hearted generosity
and true catholicity of sympathy and taste. It was Sebastiano
Ziani who greatly enlarged the Ducal Palace, bringing it to
the final form and development in the Byzantine style in
which it remained until the Gothic Palace was begun a himdred
years later. In the reign of Ziani also, the Piazza was paved,
colonnades added to its south side, and the pillars of San
Teodoro and San Marco erected. He exerted himself per-
sonally to improve the conditions of life for the prisoners
kept in the palace dungeons, and did all munificently, at his
own expense. He had the wealth to do it with, it is true.
The name of Ziani was the synonym in Venice of the Middle
Ages for that of Crcesiis in an older state and time.

Concerning the; origin of Ziani riches, the tradition was
held that a remote ancestor had found among the ruins of
Altinum a cow of massive gold, supposed to have been dedi-

8o THE DOGES OF VENICE

cated to Juno. Whether this cow were an allegorical creature
or a solid object, it had been evident to all Altinum for many
generations that wealth from some plentiful source flowed
steadily into Ziani coffers, and also proceeded out again,
liberally. It was surely no illiberality in Doge Sebastiano
that he forbade the Procurator of St. Mark to allow the alms
of the faithful to be given to friends and followers of the
officials of the Church, or to those who pleaded loudest for
help . They were to be bestowed rather upon orphans and other
genuine poor.

In the time and under the circumstances in which Sebastiano
Ziani came to the throne, a better man could not have been
chosen. A septuagenarian of whom it was said that his
ardour and spirits rose as his physical strength and his eye-
sight declined, Ziani had had experience. He knew men
and understood that contentions must be, and that human
characters are various and require to be variously dealt with.
Though enthusiastic and courageous, it did not chafe him to
have to convince others — those duU and unimaginative others !
— of the worth of his own convictions. Neither did he regard
counsel as an impertinence. He seems, moreover, to have
been a truly religious man.

Venice had never yet pronounced herself Guelph or
Ghibelline. In the battle of the Black and the White — as in
so many other controversies — ^the Venetians had waited the
issue of events and refrained from any declaration, for fear
of finding themselves on the losing side. Moreover, the Doges
had generally had concessions and privileges to claim from
successive Emperors of the West, and to be a Guelph while seek-
ing favours of the Ghibelline chief would have been to assume
an indefensible position. But now the times had moved,
and in the seat of Charlemagne there sat a young Prince —
or rather there tramped through Europe fretting, fuming,
threatening and devastating — a young Prince of noble mien
and commanding ways, whose name and nickname were
Frederick and Barbarossa.

This redbeard, then, hurled against the principalities and
commonwealths of Italy such orders to submission and
such assertions of authority, that all the natural Guelphism

RULERS OF SEA AND LAND 8i

of Ziani and his people rose to arms. " Italy for the Italians,"
" God and our right," were some Guelph sentiments inalien-
able from the Venetian character.

When the most canonically elected Pope Alexander iii
found himself confronted by a minority-voted Pope Victor iv,
who had the support of the sword and of the prestige of
Barbarossa, Ziani stretched a hand to the Guelph pontiff,
and gave aid to, if he did not become a member of, the
Lombard League of free cities. This league had been formed
in defiance of the German over-lord and in alliance with
the Norman house that ruled the Two Sicilies.

With the flight of Alexander iii to France, the story of
Doge Ziani has no concern, but with the coming of that Pope
to San Nicolo di Lido — as some chroniclers record — and with
his proceeding incognito to the Monastero de la Carita, where,
according to a Venetian tradition, he stayed and administered
the offices to the humble brothers, Ziani's story becomes
involved with that of the persecuted Holy Father. It is
said that a Venetian who had once made a pilgrimage to Rome,
what time Alexander iii held brief court there, perceived and
revealed to the Doge the identity of the wanderer-priest in the
Carita. Some modern historians doubt, though none can
deny, the tale of the going of Doge Ziani in all state to the
Lido to greet the Pope there. But true or fancied, the details
have significance, and may be related as having veritably
occurred. Accompanied by the Bishop of Torcello and with
a following of priests and laymen of many grades, the Doge
took from Venice a set of pontifical robes, with which, when
he was met, Alexander was immediately vested. So with a
circumstance very different from that in which he had been
found, the rightfidly elected Father of all Faithful was con-
ducted to Rialto and lodged in the palace there of the Arch-
bishops of Grado. A little later he appeared publicly in San
Marco and, in recognition of his honourable reception, gave
Doge Ziani the right for himself and his successors of wearing
a white circlet, in token that he was a " good and pacific Doge."

And Ziani did more than pay compliments to Alexander in.
It WELS determined in the ducal council to send Ambassadors
to Barbarossa, specially to pray the Emperor to be at peace
6

82 THE DOGES OF VENICE

with the Roman Pontiff. Frederick gave gracious reception
to the Ambassadors, but suddenly his bearing changed.
" Tell your Doge," he broke out, " that he ought not to give
shelter to the fugitive Pope, and if he persists, say that I will
take an armament that will pierce to the very heart of your
city, and place the Eagle in the Church of St. Mark, to stay
there for evermore."

The orators of Venice reported the rough utterance to the
Doge and his guest, and Ziani, we may be sure, needed no
prompting for his reply. " If the Emperor wage war, he will
find us outside the city, not in it. With a fleet we will sail
against him, and prove the arm of the Venetians."

These challenges resulted in the battle at Salboro, in which
the Imperial fleet, commanded by Barbarossa's son Otto, was
completely routed, and Otto himself, with a number of other
princely ones, taken prisoner. No return of a Doge to Venice
could have been more glorious. Not only the people, but the
Pope, awaited Ziani at the palace stairs to which he came in
a boat from his galley. The sight of the prisoners seems to
have been for the Pontiff, as for the men of Venice, a most
inspiring one. In the eyes of the Holy Father, Doge Ziani
appeared as an embodiment of that commanding masculinity
which was the soul of Venice, and which made her a compelling
and, withal, a wooing force over means of prosperity, and
paths to greatness.

As part of the great service of thanksgiving in the Church
of St. Mark, to which both Doge and Pope repaired in state,
Alexander Hi bestowed on Sebastiani Ziani a ring of gold,
speaking in Latin the words : —

" By thee my sori and Duke, and by thy successors, each
year upon Ascension Day wiU the sea be wedded with this ring
of gold, as a man subjecting her to himself, weds a wife."

Thus was the dropping of a ring into the sea introduced
into the Ascensiontide ceremonies.

The Doge, who had pity in his heart for poor prisoners,
seems to have known how to treat the youth of Imperial race
who remained in his hands on Rialto. It was tlurough the
mediation of the young Prince Otto — who himself entreated to
be allowed to go to his father upon an errand of reconcilia-

RULERS OF SEA AND LAND 83

tion, and swore to return in due time with or without the
olive branch of peace — that Barbarossa deigned at last to
pardon Alexander and his succourer, Sebastiano Ziani.

A great sight it must have been on the newly paved and
ornamented Piazza when the Einperor, who had been greeted
at the waterside by the Doge, came to Pope Alexander, who
stood to receive his homage at the door of the national basilica.
Kneeling humbly, proud Barbarossa kissed the feet of the
Bishop of the Apostohc See. And the Pontiff spared no
whit of ceremonial to make his own triumph and the humilia-
tion of the Emperor complete. Placing his foot on the bowed
head before him, Alexander recited a formula which in the
middle time of Christianity seems to have been considered
peculiarly pontifical.

" I will walk on the asp and the basilicon and triumph
over Uons and dragons." Which of the four creatiu-es was
supposed to be the symbol of Frederick) history does not
relate. Whichever it was, the Prince objected to the foot of
Alexander spuming him, except in a strictly official sense.

" Not to thee, but to Peter, of whom thou art successor,"
he declared stoutly. Alexander replied haughtily, " To me
and to Peter."

Then, Pope in centre and Emperor and Doge on either hand,
the three great actors in that day's drama proceeded pom-
pously up the nave of the Church of St. Mark, the clergy
chanting Te Deum laudamus.

When Barbarossa's stay in the Ducal Palace came to an end,
and the Pope also retired from Venice, heaping compliments
and gifts on Ziani, the zeal of this Doge for beaUtif3nng the
strongholds of Venetian dignity found a fresh channel. He
wished td complete the demolition of San Geminiano, which
blocked the centre of the enlarged Piazza, and to open the
rebuilt church (then situated at the head of the square of St.
Mark) with full papal sanction and all ducal honours. The
work of destruction had been begun in the time of Michieli iv,
but only now, when a sole Pope fulminated from Rome and
that Pope was under obligations to all Venice, was the moment
propitious to ask for a faculty for disturbing a sacred edifice.
The ambiguity of the reply of the Pope, who must have watched

84 THE DOGES OF VENICE

the falling of the walls during his stay at Venice, proved his
anxiety to be gracious to Ziani. The church being a holy place,
the Doge was told the Pope could not permit any harm being
done to it, but he would -pardon it. This pronouncement was
enough for the purpose of the Doge. The ancient church was
formally demolished and the new one thrown open with
appropriate ceremonial. In return for absolution for this
illegal act, Ziani promised that an annual visit to the new
church should be one of the established pilgrimages of the
Doge of Venice.

Feeling the weaknesses of his age increasing, Sebastiano
Ziani ended his short but most glorious reign by retiring to
the monastery of Sant George the Great, where he very shortly
afterwards died.

The next Doge was the Orio Malipiero, who had not only
yielded to, but who had himself put forward, the senior
claims of Ziani. He left no impress of his personahty on the
character and attitude of his country, although he was devout
and reigned, so the chroniclers say, " gloriously." After
twelve years of unwilling rule, he retired into the monastery
of the Holy Cross in Luprio. A Doge of inspiring personality
followed Malipiero.

Arrigo or Enrico Dandolo was the first of the dis-
tinguished Doges of his name ; the last of the crusading Doges
of Venice. Like Ziani, Dandolo was already aged when
the suffrages of the officials and the goodwill of the Venetian
people carried him to the ducal throne. In early life he had
received in some battle or tumult a cut on the head that had
deprived him of his sight. In conjunction with a disposition
of courage and a character of extreme resolution, his blindness
imparted an awe to his presence and a dignity to his appear-
ance that precluded pity.

He had reigned nearly eight years and, by the maturity
of his judgment and the youthfulness of his sympathy and
enterprise, possessed himself entirely of the confidence of his
people, when the news came to Venice of the proclamation
by Pope Innocent iii of a Fifth Crusade. Following the
news came Ambassadors from Baldwin, Count of Flanders,
Theobald, Count of Troyes, and Louis, Count of Blois, who

RULERS OF SEA AND LAND 85

vaunted themselves greatly of the prowess and devotion of
their masters, and the strength and the quality of the French
armies they led, but confessed that without the Venetian
navy and the Venetian sea-power generally, their hosts and
the captains of them were dead arms of Christian valour and
sympathy.

Gracious and business-Uke were the discourses delivered,
first by the French orators, and then by the Doge. Dandolo
proceeded deliberately, and took time to consult with his
councillors. In the end he agreed to assist the crusading
enterprise, for valuable consideration. Venice would supply
transports, armed ships and provisions for the French troops,
and, in addition, would, " for the love of God," dispatch a
war-fleet of fifty galleys. Besides the money payments
demanded for these aids, the conditions were also imposed
that no Frenchman was to set sail from Cremona, Bologna,
Imola or Faenza, unless by the special consent of Venice, and
that of aU conquests and spoils of the expedition, Venice
should receive half. Preparations having been made and
contracts discussed, an appeal was made to a popular
assembly. From Grado to Cavazero, aU male adults received
a summons, and when near ten thousand of them were
gathered in the Church of St. Mark, the Mass of the Holy
Ghost having been sung. Doge Dandolo called upon Godfrey
de Villehardouin, as ambassador-in-chief, to ask of the people
humbly if the proposed agreement should take effect.
Kneeling before the congregation, Villehardouin, in the name
of the most high and pptent barons of France, begged the
Venetians to take pity on Jerusalem, and to vindicate the
honour of their Saviour, since no other nation had their
power over the sea. Villehardouin would not rise to his
feet till consent to his prayer was given. It came to him
with one voice. Lifting their hands to Heaven, the Doge
and his people shouted : " It is conceded. It is con-
ceded."

In pursuance of the contract, French lords with their
knightly retinues and troops of fighting-men, came flocking
in fair numbers to the islands, but a considerable proportion
of the Crusaders, pledged through their nominal leaders to

86 THE DOGES OF VENICE

embark at Venice, took ships in Puglia or at Marseilles. The
numbers bringing gain and employment to Venice were
therefore disappointing. More disappointing still was the
announcement of the barons that very little of their promised
subsidy of from 30,000 to 40,000 marks would be forthcoming.
Nobly they proceeded to surrender all articles of value in
their possession, but the worth of all was not enough to make
up the sum they had agreed to give. In this dilemma, however,
the Doge saw an advantage. Disturbing news of the defection
of Zara had come to Venice at a time when it was particularly
unwelcome. Dandolo asked the barons to join with him in
a punitive expedition against that city and the Hungarian
army that succoured it. The barons thought the matter a
purely national one. Dandolo urged that the rebel colony
possessed its own fleet of sufficient strength to be a serious
obstacle in the path of the allies.

It was to abandon the whole expedition, or to accept the
terms of the Doge, so the barons agreed to do his will,
promising to pay their debt to the RepubHc when it pleased
God to give the Crusaders, through effective conquest, the
ineans of satisf5iing it. A new compact was entered into
and made the subject of another referendum.

Villehardouin has left us a precise description of this
second great gathering in the Basilica of the populace and
the majority of barons and pilgrims then in Venice. Before
the solemn Mass was begun the venerable Doge mounted the
pulpit and addressed his people.

" Sirs," he said, " you are associated with the first gentle-
men of the world, and for a more important affair than can
ever again be undertaken. I am old and blind. I need
repose and am feeble in my body. But I see that no one can
govern you and lead you as well as I who am your Sire. If
you, therefore, will consent to my taking the Cross, to guard
you and direct you, and allow my son to be in my place in
our own land, I will go to live and to die with you and with
these pilgrims ! "

It was a noble speech and a prophetic one. It went
straight to the hearts and consciences of those addressed.
With a great shout, the cry went up as the cry of one rapturous

RULERS OF SEA AND LAND 87

soul, " We pray you in God's name to take the Cross and be
avenged with us."

So stirred were the people of the place, and the pilgrims
alike, by the pious announcement of the blind and aged man
(it is Villehardouin who has told us this) that many tears
were shed. But the weakness of his hearers did not make
Dandolo waver. He was strong and had a great heart.
Descending from the pulpit, he fell on his knees before the
altar. Then, though not tUl then, his own tears flowed.
But his emotion only made him stronger. He had the crucifix
sewn upon his ducal bonnet, in order that it might be seen
by all ; and many, very many, were the Venetians who took
the Cross that day, fired by the example of their Doge.

The great flotilla started at last. Dandolo was in supreme
command, with a Venetian admiral under him and all ships
officered by Venetians. From first to last, a period of three
years, it was the spirit and judgment of the Doge that animated
and controlled the expedition.

Zara was soon subdued, at least as fax as that rebounding
city ever was subdued. But this diversion of the Crusade
was not at all to the liking of the Pope, who sent to Dandolo,
at the time when, the Hungarian garrison having been expelled,
the allies were occupying Zara, a letter severely condemning
the conquest of that city and directing the conquerors to
abandon all booty and take a solemn oath to repair all
wrong done. The French barons, we are told, hastened to
supplicate pardon, but the Doge of Venice, disregarding on
principle all ecclesiastical intervention in affairs of state,
went on with his plan for a complete reduction of the city.
■WTien the barons received a further command from the Pope
directing them not again to turn to the right or the left hand,
but to go straight in to the Holy Land, the men of Venice
were excommunicated. Nevertheless, the French were still
allowed to avail themselves of Venetian transport, on con-
dition that the two forces separated completely on reaching
Palestine.

The barons professed themselves humbly submissive, yet
the directions of the Pontiff were again to be disregarded by
French and Venetians alike. The fleet still lay in Dalmatian

88 THE DOGES OF VENICE

waters, and emissaries from Rome were yet parleying with
the Doge and barons, when there arrived at Zara a mission
from the court of Duke Philip of Suabia, "King of the Romans,"
begging the Crusaders to re-conduct to Constantinople the
young Prince Alexios, son of the Emperor Isaac, himself a
usurper, who had been deposed, incarcerated and blinded by
his brother, another Alexios. The Duchess of Suabia was Irene,
daughter of the Emperor Isaac. Prince Alexios, therefore, was
brother-in-law to Philip of Suabia, and it was this near
relationship, doubtless, that provoked in the mind of the
" King of the Romans " that vision of a reunited East and
West under one Roman Emperor, which had already
dazzled and led to doom so many Prankish and Norman
Rulers.

The specific offer of Duke Philip was that upon the
accession to power in Constantinople of Prince Alexios, the
ancient unity of the Church should be restored, and a sum
of 200,000 marks, owing from the Byzantine Court to Venice,
paid. Furthermore, the Prince himself would either go on
with the Crusaders to Palestine, or meet the cost of main-
taining for one year a contingent of 10,000 men. He would
further keep on foot, throughout his Ufe, a guard of 500
knights for the protection of the Holy Sepulchre.

Long discussions were the result of this proposition. The
Crusader chiefs and the legates of the Pope met for the conclave
at the house of Doge Dandolo, who took the position of president
of the assembly. The legates, of course, vigorously opposed
a further divergence of the expedition, and there were men
of piety among the valiant ones who believed the curse of
God must follow on direct disobedience of the Pope. Blind
Dandolo, however, took a different view, and he was supported
by Boniface of Montferrato, who was connected by marriage
with the Emperor Isaac. The view of Dandolo, prompted by
many interests of the Republic, was that no effective conquest
of the Saracens could ever be achieved, while a Greek govern-
ment continued to subsidize them in their campaigns against
Christian power. Constantinople was the gate of Europe
and must be held with a strong hand against the Turks. There
could be no true reclamation of the holy places, until Mahom-

RULERS OF SEA AND LAND 89

medan influence had been entirely banished from both Greece
and Egypt. There was, however, no question at the moment of
descending on the African offenders. Only the Byzantine
port, in the neighbourhood of which there still remained a
considerable Venetian colony, lay in the route to the Holy
Land ! Some of the French pilgrims objected to the last
to the Venetian design, and left the allies at Zara, to tran-
ship at other ports for the East. But the bulk of the army
and the whole of the great fleet followed the lead of the Doge
and the young Prince, who, after being welcomed affectionately
at Zara by Dandolo and the Marquis of Montferrato, went
on to Durazzo to receive there the homage of his lieges. He
finally joined the expedition at Corfu.

The fleet saUed then through the Hellespont into the Sea
of Marmora, where a contrary wind prevented the exact making
of a course advised by Dandolo. But, at last, his seasoned
judgment prevailed to the bringing of the ships to anchorage
before Scutari, where the success of a French foraging party
of eighty men in repelling a Greek army of five hundred, was
regarded as a happy presage of the ultimate triumph of the com-
bined onslaught of army and fleet. The success of the Crusaders
was indeed great in the end, and it was chiefly attributable to
the commanding talents and sweet powers of persuasion of the
Doge. The advices of Dandolo constantly overruled the plans
of the French leaders, and his counsels showed him to have been,
for the years of his life, a thoughtful student of political affairs
and human character, and, in the time before his blindness,
a keen observer of geographical situations and strategical
positions. The demonstration, attacks, and visitations by
fire and sword, which went before the final siege and occupation
of Constantinople in April 1204, lasted eleven months. During
this period the elder Alexios was driven from the throne, and the
Emperor Isaac dragged forth from his dungeon and reunited
with his consort and his son. His liberation re-established his
court of soothsayers and magicians, which seems to have been
the only court he cared to gather round him. It brought
the young Alexios, however, to a position of authority, for he
was crowned joint-Emperor with his father in the Chiirch of
St. Sophia. As Emperor, he grew cold and distant to his erst-

90 THE DOGES OF VENICE

while very good friends the Doge and the barons. The
Prince was indeed greatly embarrassed by the promises made
in his name at Zara, which he now found it difficult to fulfil.
His embarrassments, poor youth, did not last long. A con-
triving and ambitious chamberlain of the re-established court
took advantage of some popular disaffection roused by the
rumour that Alexios meant to hand the city over to the
Crusaders, and in collusion with the Treasurer of the Empire,
lured the young Emperor one night into a guarded chamber
of the Imperial palace and there had him strangled before
his own eyes. To cover up the actual mode of death and to
give colour to a statement to be made that he had died from
a fall, the body of the victim was battered and slashed to a
horrible extent. A pompous lying-in-state and a gorgeous
burial were the only atonements made for the outrage. The
shock of his son's murder was a death-blow to the Emperor
Isaac, and French princes and Venetian Doge had likely been
massacred as ruthlessly as had been these Imperial ones, if
Enrico Dandolo had not been suspicious of a message sent in
the name of Alexios to the Crusaders at their quarters. This
message was one of Borgian conception, for it invited the allied
chiefs to sup at the Palace of Blachernse with the Emperor.
The subtle speech of the messenger had no alarms for the
barons, and the Doge replied to the invitation with perfect
suavity. But when the Imperial envoy had departed, Dandolo
warned his allies of the likelihood of the proposal being a trap.
With clarity and eloquence he enumerated all the shifts and
treacheries they had already endured at the hands of the young
sovereign, and showed them how important it was to ascertain
exactly how matters stood in Constantinople before they
proceeded there as supper-guests of His Majesty. It was
not the Emperor who was playing them false this time, but
Dandolo's study of the Greek character and the political con-
dition of Constantinople served himself and his allies well.
The apt frustration of the chamberlain's plot threw all out of
gear at the palace, and the moment became opportune for a
more vigorous onslaught on the city than had yet been waged.
Indeed, it was the complete subjugation, not of Constantinople
alone, but of the whole Greek Empire, that was now aimed

RULERS OF SEA AND LAND 91

at. There were those who still demurred at the delay in
getting to Palestine, and those who feared that the task pro-
posed was too great a one. But the courage and wisdom of
Dandolo swayed the army as a whole and called forth answering
flames of courage and far-sightedness in the breasts of the nobler
of his colleagues.

It was a terrible siege — that last determined and maddened
onslaught by depleted bodies of troops convoyed from far
cotmtries, on a citadel defended by millions of grim inhabitants.
But discipline, faith and enthusiastic unity prevailed in the
end against disorganization, fatalism and internecine strife.
Through all the long and bloody attack, at least upon the seaside,
the forces were heartened by the sight and tale of the wonder-
ful blind greybeard, who stood on the poop of the armada's
flagship, waving the standard of St. Mark and calling on his
men to rally, to steer on, to work their mangonels and throw
their missiles of destruction with more vigour and greater
dash. Yet for all his reckless audacity under the arrows and
projectiles of the enemy, Dandolo knew when it was prudent
to retire and when it was for the better advancement of all
arms, or for some forces, to go back. In the end, when the
allied troops entered Constantinople and it became the task
of the Latin, Norman, French and Flemish conquerors to
elect an Emperor, it was to Enrico Dandolo that the suffrages
of all hearts went out. For the army, as for the navy before
Constantinople, the Doge of Venice with his sightless eyes and
keen mental vision, his grey head and his young heart, was
something more than a man. Upon him the Divine favour
seemed specially to rest. Yet when the vote was formally
taken at an assemblage of the barons, bishops and other chiefs
of the expedition, the suffrages, from many considerations, were
divided. The majority certainly were given to Dandolo, and
the Doge would undoubtedly have been made the Emperor
had it not been that one Pantaleone Barbo, a Venetian,
speaking no doubt under ducal sanction, objected strongly
in the name of his compatriots to the elevation of Dandolo.
Barbo's speech is memorable, and forms a splendid epitaph to
the genius of the great Doge. It summarizes also with point
the sentiments and opinions of the Venetian Empire-makers

92 THE DOGES OF VENICE

of that time. Of course it has been paraphrased, if not extended,
in the records.

" Sage Electors," ^ said this patriot, " I observe a strong
incHnation on your part to confer on our Doge the imperial
crown, and I am disposed to join with you in thinking that,
even among so many heroes, there is none more worthy of the
high dignity to which you would thus raise him. Yet at the
same time,' which may appear strange to you, I feel that
there are several whose claim is preferable."

At the murmur of astonishment that greeted these opening
words, Barbo bade the " electors " hear him out. The empire
they proposed to restore, he said, was encompassed by so
many enemies, that a large and powerful marine was needed
to save it from dismemberment and ruin.

"It is no exaggeration to say," he went on, " that the
Venetians alone are in a position to furnish that aid. Our
Republic took Constantinople : she can protect it.

" It will be far easier for her to send fleets from her dock-
yards, than for the Count of Flanders or the Marquis of Mont-
ferrato to draw armies from their estates. But in taking
possession of the empire in her own name, our Republic would
commit an almost suicidal act. For, leaving out of the ques-
tion the cabals and dissensions, to which the ambition of
reigning would infallibly lead us in the end, how should we
provide for the danger and risk which would arise from the
elevation of a fellow-citizen to the throne of Constantinople ?
Master of the whole of Greece, as well as of a large portion of
the East, clothed with the power, and swollen with the pride
of sovereignty, will he remain subject to the laws of Venice ?
Will he not forget his country ? Dandolo, from the loftiness of
his spirit, and the nobleness of his heart, would, as I am well
assured, be far above such sentiments ; but who shall answer
for his successors ? "

There was no reply to this piercing question, and the
patriot-orator continued : —

"It is amid our native lagoons that that power has gradu-
ally risen, which now commands the respect of all Europe ;
detached from the soil, which gave it birth, and transplanted

1 Sentences of this speech are quoted verbatim from Hazlitt's rendering of
it in his Venetian Republic.

RULERS OF SEA AND LAND 9

to the shores of the Bosphorus, it will decline indubitably,
it will cease to be ours. You may tell me that Dandolo and
his heirs will no longer in fact be Venetians, and that Venice
will have the honour of having given masters to Greece.
But that, T say, is a condition which Dandolo himself would
not accept. Consider again, this election' will probably pre-
clude you from achieving the leading object of the undertaking
in which you are engaged. ... If you remain faithful to the
oath which was administered to you on assuming the Cross,
you must at once relinquish the idea of nominating our Doge
to the vacant throne, and allow your decision to rest between
the Count of Flanders and the Marquis Boniface. . . . Only
let it be understood, in order that we may prevent the certain
and deplorable effect of disunion, that whichever of the two
is honoured by your sviffrages, shall yield to the other the
island and dependencies of Candia, as well as all the territory
which still belongs to the empire beyond the Bosphorus.
By this means you will attach them to each other by the
ties of friendship and interest ; otherwise it is to be appre-
hended that both will be lost, and, with them, the hope of
recovering the Holy Land."

The matter was concluded very much in the way that Barbo
had suggested.

Baldwin, Coimt of Flanders, was elected Emperor, and to
further balance matters, Tommaso Morosini, a Venetian,
was made Patriarch of Constantinople. Upon Dandolo, as
" Doge of Venice, Dalmatia and Croatia," were conferred the
extra titles of " Despot and Lord of one-fourth and one-
half OF THE Roumanian Empire," and it was ordered that
he, as well as the Emperor Baldwin, should have his buskins
dyed with the Imperial purple.

The end of Enrico Dandolo was as stately £is his life.
He died in the Imperial city almost in the very hour of the
culmination of his dignities, and was entombed with all pomp
and every honour in the Cathedral of St. Sophia.

CHAPTER VII
MASTERFUL MINDS AND STRIKING PERSONALITES

A.D. 1205 TO 1275

IN Sebastiano Ziani the Venetians had recognized a
much-desired man of peace, but of even more pacific
profession was Sebastiano's son, Pietro Ziani. " War,
we can always have if we want it ; peace, you should zealously
seek for and keep when found," is a saying attributed to
Pietro. It is further recorded that " no war he was engaged
in, was due to his initiative." Men of great wealth are nearly
always men of peace. By disposition, Pietro Ziani \i?as no
exception to this rule. Yet he was ambitious for his country,
and propounded some schemes which, had they been adopted,
would have been provocative of strife. Moreover, he did not
conduct the campaigns that were forced upon him in any
half-hearted manner. Preparing for a fight, he displayed
both caution and zest. Celebrating a victory, he was jubilant
and ecstatic. Indeed, his impulses and passions gave evidence
of a certain degeneration. The physical fitness and mental
hardihood of the most richly endowed race he sprang from,
seem to have reached their zenith of expression in the gracious
personality and balanced brain of his father. The tours-
de-force of Pietro were counterbalanced by weaknesses that
suggest an epileptic tendency of body, or some other loosening
of the nerves of control.

Two or three incidents of his ducal career, some of them
authentic, others exaggerated accounts of probable happen-
ings, show what quality of man was Doge Pietro Ziani, and
what manner of times he lived in.

Mock-fights, on which Beauty's bright eyes looked down,

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MASTERFUL MINDS 95

were Fashion's recreation of the hour, and there was held a
wonderful tourney at Spineto in Treviso, to which the young
gallants of Padua and Venice resorted to compete with the
Trevisans for the smiles of fair ladies set up — a lovely garrison
— ^in a mock-tower. When the assailants came on, jewelled
and silk -robed maidens leant over battlements of wood
richly covered with precious tapestries and fantastic orna-
ments. As the humour took them, these maidens gave
looks of encouragement or words of repulse to the besiegers
who bombarded them with flowers, perfumes, fruits and
herbs, and were with the same missiles pelted back. A
subtlety, if not a cynicism of the Venetian attack, was the
inclusion of money in their ammunition. The Venetians won
the day, but their victory was a signal for the breaking forth
of hardly stemmed Trevisan jealousy against the buccaneers
from the sovereign isles.

The assumption that the favour of Trevisan ladies was
purchasable, made the knights of the ravaged mainland all
fury. The swordsmen who had assembled in friendly rivalry,
took to battling with one another in fierce earnest. The
Venetians were given no opportunity of triumph. As they
rushed to enter the capitulated fort, the Paduans sprang
forward and seized the Standard of St. Mark before it could
be planted on the walls.

A truce was called at last, and the competitors were re-
minded of the fact that it was only in mock contest they
were met. But passions were roused, and a more fitting cause
for serious quarrel remained in the existence between Chioggia
and Adria, of a Tower, called delle Bebbe, that had been buUt
by the Venetians as a protection against freebooters, for peace-
ful travellers to and from their islands. The Paduans had
long looked upon this Tower, so near their borders, as a menace
of their safety. They now sent to the Doge the message that
if he did not puU it down they would come themselves to
demolish it.

The ducal answer was wordless but determined. First a
party of sailors from Venice brought the ropes and cordage
they were well used to manipulate, and enveloped the fortress
so completely in a net that no stone or other projectile could get

96 THE DOGES OF VENICE

contact with the walls. Then came the Chioggians — engineers
these — who dug a fosse round the Tower and filled it with water.
At last arrived the Doge, who examined the defences and
consulted with his captains. Well satisfied with his sailors'"
and the Chioggians' work, Ziani returned to Venice, leaving
disposed about the Tower a considerable force, principally-
composed of local stalwarts who, not waiting to be attacked,
devastated the Paduan fields that lay adjacent, and in one way
and another effectually protected the Tower, which itself stood
for the permanent protection of the high roads.

"Very glad indeed" were those Paduans, so an old
chronicler affirmed, " whom the Venetians deigned to take
prisoners, because otherwise they would have been drowned
in the moat." The only Paduans who escaped seem to have
been the fortunate ones, of some rank, who were saved by the
fleetness of their horses. So great was the discomfiture of
the enemies of " Monsignor the Doge" !

A runner who brought to Venice the news of the rout of
the Paduans, was received by 2iani with the utmost demonstra-
tion of delight. Round the fleet-foot's shoulders the Doge
threw his own rich mantle, and, putting his hand in his pocket,
gave the breathless messenger more silver pieces than he
could have earned in half a year. As a reward for their
efficient contribution to this victory, the Chioggians were
relieved from an annual tribute previously paid to the Doge,
of three fowls from each family. The conflict ended with the
making — through the mediation of the Patriarch of AquUeia
— of a five years' truce between the Paduans, Trevisans and
Venetians.

The particular assistance of Chioggia in this affair of the

Tower of Bebbe may have been given because the Podesta

Giacomo Baseio — who led the troop which came so timely, was
a relation of 2iani by marriage ; probably the Dogaressa's
brother. In any case, neither ducal coronation - vows nor
Venetian statutes could suppress all natural aids of family
ffectio n, and Pietro Ziani had in "la bella Maria" (Baseio),
daughter of a Procurator of St. Mark, a much-loved wife, by
whom he had a son — Giorgio. It is not an unbelievable legend
that the shock of the death of this boy, who was attacked and

MASTERFUL MINDS 97

mangled by the dogs of the monastery of San Giorgio Maggiore,
brought on one of those terrible rages which show Pietro
Ziani to have been lacking in control. In revenge for the
grievous accident, the Doge ordered the San Giorgio to be
burned to the ground with all the dogs and monks in it. The
monastery was destroyed, and no doubt the dogs too, but as
after the rebuilding, also ordered by this Doge, the brothers
returned to their own, and as at no period was any particular
inquiry made by either ecclesiastical or lay authorities, the
monks must have at least escaped with their lives at the time
of the fire. It is, however, quite consistent with the epileptic
inconsistency of Ziani's character, that he had at the time a
murderous intention.

In the year 1216, when he was already old, but still molio
vivo, he married for his second wife, Costanza, daughter of
Tancred, King of Sicily. " Queen by birth, Dogaressa of
Venice by marriage, she seemed more to appreciate the
kingdom of Venice with the title of Princess, than the Duchy
of Calabria with the title of Queen. She was brave and
beautiful, and, unlike most women, was not jealous."

This praise of an old chronicler gives a little insight into
the character of King Tancred's daughter, though it does not
tell us much of her relations with the Doge. That she was
not jealous, may imply that Ziani gave her cause to be, but
we have no other hint that he failed in the devotion
due to her. By his wiU he appointed her, with the Abbot of
San Giorgio Maggiore, trustee of his estate. He seems also to
have bequeathed to her special powers of government over
their three children. Costanza was young and he mature of
years, and it was supposed that he had made his second marriage
with the prime object of providing himself with an heir ; but
report accredited her with a passive, if not an active, influence
over him, and with being the cause of his sudden turning from
the strict Venetian policy propounded in the address of Barbo
to the " Sage Electors " at Constantinople.

It has recently been doubted that Ziani ever made the

suggestion to transfer the seat of government from the lagoons

to the Bosphorus. But the doubt would seem to spring only

frpm the amiable assumption that a Doge of Venice could not

7

98 THE DOGES OF VENICE

have been so unpatriotic. It is certain, however, that the
husband of Costanza gained the repute of making a proposi-
tion of which the avowed motive was the obtaining of a broader
dominion and a wider trade for his country; and if he did
make it, it must be believed that a poUcy calculated further to
undermine Greek influence in Constantinople, and to create
for the Norman ruler of the Two Sicilies some vital interests
in the Byzantine capital, was too much in the interests of
Ziarii's relatives by marriage not to have been inspired by
his Dogaressa. Some later circumstances of his reign were
also conducive to the reputed change in his policy. The
Doge may very well have been depressed by revolting out-
breaks in the Venetian colonies, particularly in Crete, and
by the destruction, through an earthquake, of the monastery
he had lately rebuilt. We know that he took extreme and
exaggerated views of natural and political . occurrences. A
letter received in 1219 from his Viceroy in Constantinople —
GiACOMO TiEPOLo, a Doge to be — could only have deepened
his anxieties. In this letter the anarchical state of affairs
generally, both in the Eastern capital and the Archipelagiac
dependencies, and the difificulties of reconciling with Imperial
jurisdiction the temporal power arrogated, in view of certain
ecclesiastical possessions, by the Roman Patriarch, were
described with eloquence. The Emperor Peter (Courtenay)
had lately died in captivity in Epirus. It was the time of
the regency of his widow, Yolande, sister of the second Latin-
Frankish Emperor Henry, who had herself been hailed the
Empress but for the Salic law. The weakness of the Imperial
authority and the strength of the Viceroy's influence made
the moment propitious for the extension of Venetian power
in Constantinople.

The record that stands of Ziani's speech cannot of course
be verbally exact, but even the modern critics who reject
it altogether show no good reason why it should be doubted
as a report of the substance and impression of some words
spoken on the subject before the Great Council by this Doge.
In his accredited address, Ziani emphasized the value of
Venetian settlements in the Levant and Corfu, and appraised
the size and natural advantages of Crete. Then, after depicting

MASTERFUL MINDS

99

the principal islands of the Archipelago as subject, or longing
to be subject, to Venetian dominion, he said that only in the
proud and populous city built on the shores of two seas could
the utmost security be obtained and easy communications
with the colonies set up. Further — so it is stated — ^he pro-
fessed himself sure that countries that were now constantly
rebelling against a Uttle capital hidden away at the bottom
of the GuK of Adria, would obey without a murmur the same
capital set in a position to dominate the trade and political
relationships of all Europe and Asia !

"It is my desire that you may be able to repulse your
neighbours and to keep your subjects under proper control,"
is the quoted pronouncement of the Doge. " It is my desire
that you may aggrandize and enrich yourselves. But how can
you enjoy the fruit of your prosperity in these morasses,
where you are destitute of all the necessaries of life ; where,
at the ebb of the tide, the air is impregnated with poisonous
vapours ; where these same waters threaten you in their
rising, with floods ? ... It is in vain that you endeavour to
settle on a shifting sand; the earthquakes which visit you
periodically overturn your habitations. You have estab-
lished yourselves on a soil against which all the elements seem
to conspire ; surely such a soil can never form the seat of a
powerful empire. It is now in your power to exchange these
arid shores, this tempestuous sea, these pestiferous swamps,
for the finest and most enchanting site in the universe, where
you can easily keep at a distance the Pisans and the Genoese,
where you may hold sway over the islands of the Archipelago,
over the whole of Greece, and over the coasts of Asia, and
where you may command, against aU rivals, the commerce
of the world."

The silence of a profound astonishment greeted this
peroration, but scarcely had the Doge descended from the
tribunal than httle puffs of a storm to come blew here and
there throughout the assembly. Many dissentient murmurs
broke forth in aU parts of the chamber, but there were those
whom Ziani's raptures had persuaded, and discussion became
fierce and agitated. Eventually, silence was again procured ;
this time for an aged ex-Proctirator of St. Mark, whose
address is recorded in the following words of eloquence : —

" Whatever repugnance I may naturally feel," said Angelo

100 THE DOGES OF VENICE

Faliero, " to contradict the views of the Prince to whom I
owe obedience and respect, I do so on the present occasion
with less diffidence, inasmuch as I feel that I am about to
plead before you the cause of my country. I should account
myself indeed guilty of ingratitude toward that native land
where my progenitors have always been held in honour,
and where I myself have been bred, educated and raised to
high trusts, if I now consented to abandon her and to go in
search of other advantages which are reported to be awaiting
us in a distant and foreign country. And what is the value
of these advantages, in reality ? A purer air, a more pleasing
site, a more fertile soil, a more extensive commerce ; it is
said an ampler dominion. Ah ! when the inhabitants of
Padua first sought an asylum in the lagoons, they were only
too thankful that these shores were barren, uncultivated,
deserted ; that they were in the midst of the waters. If they
had been rich, fertile and populous, our forefathers would
not have found there a secure shelter; our Republic, our
country would not now exist. We shotdd be, on the contrary,
the subjects of one of the petty princes of Italy ; nor should
we be now considering whether it is expedient to forsake our
Common Mother, that we may seek a new Empire in the
East. Did our ancestors think of quitting their lagoons when
they found that they no longer needed their protection ? No.
In grateful recollection of the benefits which they had received
from them, they naturalized themselves on these shores ;
and during 800 years have they not laboured incessantly
to fortify themselves against their enemies and against the
elements ? They have built here sumptuous edifices ; they
have collected all the necessaries of life in this spot ; they have
erected temples, and those temples they have decorated with
the trophies of their victories. We reproach our native land
with its insalubrity; yet — blind that we are — we forget that
the most terrible diseases and epidemics come from the
East, whither, it is suggested, we should go. We complain
of the sterility of our soil, as if anything were wanting to our
necessities, to our caprices ! As if the waters by which we
are surrounded did not afford us abundance of nourishment
and " an unfailing source of industry and wealth ! They
speak of earthquakes. What country is more exposed to
them than Constantinople ? They speak to us of safety and
of riches. Is it not here that you have found your safety ;
is it not here that you acquire those riches that now make
you ambitious ? They speak also of Colonies. And from
whom, I inquire, have you taken the greater part of those
which you possess now ? Did you not take them from that

MASTERFUL MINDS loi

power to which they were said inaUenably to belong? Our
Greek colonies are important, undoubtedly, but are they the
only dependencies of the Republic which she has to preserve ?
Have Istria and Dalmatia lost all value in your eyes ? "

The venerable Faliero then proceeded to analyse even
more astutely the Doge's scheme, and to forecast its outcome
in a manner at once just and imaginative.

" One of two things," he said. " Either you must go to the
East in the character of conquerors, and then your political
projects will be subordinate to the course of events ; 6r you
must go there simply with the intention of settling peaceably
in one of the quarters of Constantinople. But how can we
conceive it possible that two independent governments should
exist within the precincts of a single city ? "

The speeches of both Doge and ex-Procurator greatly
moved the assembly, and, when the vote was taken, it was found
to be equally balanced. The Vote of Providence, which was a
casting vote and not, as its name seems to imply, a lot drawn,
had then to decide between the parties. We are not told who
cast the vote, but by it Venice was saved from the consequences
of a rash ambition.

When Pietro Ziani made his remarkable proposition, he
was already in ill-health and had for some time neglected
to take his part in public affairs, leaving the Privy Council^
to perform the ducal functions. This inactivity betokens
considerable mental failure in a man who had manifested
much intellectual power in the earlier years of his life. So
strong had been his memory and so clear his grasp, that it
had been his practice to listen to a number of ambassadors and
other spokesmen of deputations one after the other ; hearing
them all with closed eyes in a lolling attitude and an apparent
condition of somnolent indifference. Then at the conclusion
of the series of orations he would suddenly recover himself
and answer each address in the order of its presentation. On
one occasion he made good replies in this fashion to no less than
twenty-two envoys.

But now had occurred a flaming aftermath of his extra-
ordinary psychic qualities, and his last effort to be sunlike had

102 THE DOGES OF VENICE

quite exhausted him. Four-and-twenty years a Doge, he
became again a private gentleman. Accounts differ as to his
place of death. Some give his old home and estate at Santa
Giustina as the spot. He certainly spent some of the latter days
of his life there. Others afi&rm that he went into retreat at
the monastery — again rebuilt — of San Giorgio Maggiore. It
seems likely that during the years of his quasi-retirement he
lived much at Santa Giustina, but that when the end ap-
proached more nearly and he finally resigned even the name
of Doge, he entered the Benedictine monastery.

For aU his originalities and eccentricities, Ziani seems never
to have attempted in any way to override the constitution,
and in his dying hours showed himself a stickler for legality
and etiquette. He refused to receive his successor, Giacomo
TiEPOLO, who came to pay him a complimentary visit either at
Santa Giustina or San Giorgio, because Tiepolo's election as
Doge had been finally decided by the drawing of a lot. The
forty electors had been equally divided in favour of two
candidates. To prevent a recurrence of this disaster, the
" Forty " were then made " Forty-One."

Giacomo Tiepolo had been in his time Governor of Candia
and, as we have seen. Consul at Constantinople. He was already,
therefore, more than half a Doge when elected to the ducal
chair by the bare majority of the fatal one. Although the Pro-
missione, or oath of promise, subscribed by him upon his election,
was a model declaration, and so much more advanced in re-
straints and limitations of the ducal authority than the earliest
one preserved — that of Enrico Dandolo — that it served as
the draft for all subsequent Promissioni, there were yet many
ambitions of his to be reprehended and prerogatives of his
to be shorn, when, twenty-one years later, it became the
turn of another to take the ducal oath. The censuring of
these ambitions — all most natural and human ones — and the
deprivation of these prerogatives were provided for, even
before Giacomo Tiepolo began his reign, by the establishment
of two fresh boards of scrutineers, called respectively the Cor-
rettori delta Promissione Ducale and the Inquisitori sul Doge
Defunto. The reports of these commissioners, so far as they
have been preserved, give many enlightening hints concerning

MASTERFUL MINDS 103

the special dispositions of the Doges whose careers they re-
flected on. Hints are derivable also from the Promissioni
of the Doges themselves. In nearly all cases the new
features in them tell of some weaknesses in the recently defunct.
The oath of the first Tiepolo to attain to ducal rank, contained
the promises not to send any letters or legations to foreign
princes without the approval of the Council, and not to accept
any gifts from any persons whatsoever, except offerings of
rose-water, foliage, flowers, herbs or balsams. His Dogaressa
also was bound to refuse presents ; the only exceptions to
this rule for both, being gifts on occasions of marriage either
of the Doge himself or of members of his family. These pro-
mises were undoubtedly kept by Tiepolo, by Maria (Sterlato)
the wife of his youth, and Gualdrada (sister of King Roger of
Sicily, and of Costanza, Dogaressa of Pietro Ziani) the consort
of his later years. When, however, the joint state of Giacomo
Tiepolo and his royal spouse came to an end in 1249, we learn
from the oath exacted from his successor, Marino Morosini,
that he had offended against republican principle by appoint-
ing sons of his to high state offices. Pietro had been made
Podesta of Milan, and Giovanni created Count of Ossero after
having exercised the offices of a Captain-General in the re-
conquest of Zara. Giovanni, furthermore, had been an Am-
bassador. Lorenzo, who became subsequently a Doge himself,
was also a Captain-General in his father's time and the holder
of the fief of Veglia.

AH three sons seem to have executed their trusts with
fidelity. Certainly all three were good fighting-men and
warred gallantly for their country. But some results, which
in a political sense had to be regarded by certain parties
in the state as evils, arose from the appointment of Pietro.

Venice had, on occasions, shown a natural sympathy with
the aims of the Lombard League, but the Republic had never
proclaimed itself definitely Guelph. True to the commercial
spirit of its people, the Government had treated with Ghibelline
and Guelph alike, so long as some definite advantage, mer-
cantile, social or poUtical, was to be obtained from either.
It was no wonder, therefore, that the young Emperor, Fred-
erick II, grandson of the famous Barbarossa, and heir of

104 THE DOGES OF VENICE

much of the talent, virtue and pride of his grandsire, when
he made his first visit of importance to Italy after his accession,
should go to Venice and endeavour by his arts of graciousness
to win the Doge to a lasting friendship.

Received with the hospitality and deference that Venetian
Dukes had ever shown to German Emperors, Frederick
inspected all the buildings of importance, informed him-
self concerning the institutions of the country, and watched
the life of the island people. Everj^thing he saw was pleasing
to him, he declared, but the features he most esteemed were
the confidence and unity which permeated the whole city,
from the greatest to the least of the citizens. Especially
were these characteristics admirable in times when the rest
of Italy was distracted by factions ; by wars between cities and
cities, and of citizens against citizens, which consumed forces
that might have been utihzed in building up the greatness of
the nation. If all this Imperial homage to free Venice did
not give Frederick the right to expect some loyalty to him,
and some friendship to his power in his future endeavours
to subject the turbulent states of the mainland to a supreme
authority — his own — at least his concessions of privileges to
Venetian residents and traders in the northern parts of his
domains and in Sicily, might have been supposed to win their
fealty. Yet the compliments of the Doge were little more
than compliments. Far from giving battle to resisters of
Frederick's power, the Venetians, very shortly after his visit,
became, with the Genoese, bankers to the Lombard League.
Attempts at reconciliation with these wealthy maritime
states, made by Frederick with the Pope as an intermediary
— a none too fair-minded one — ^whoUy failed.

War broke out again in earnest, and the figure of Eccehno
da Romano — he of the " hungry cheek " Browning sings of in
Sordello — throws a dark shadow on the scene of Venetian Ufe ;
even lays a chill hand of sorrow on the heart of Giacomo Tiepolo.

One of the first of the towns, if not the first, to resist the
arms of Frederick and his lieutenant Eccelino successfully,
was Treviso, which did brave defence under Pietro Tiepolo,
the Doge's eldest son. Pietro was then Podesta of Treviso,
but on his quickly following appointment to the same office

MASTERFUL MINDS 105

in the more important city of Milan, Treviso jdelded to the
power of Frederick, which looks much as if the independence
of the Trevisans had been imposed upon them with their
Venetian Podesta. At Milan, Pietro showed himself un-
questionably bold and brave. When Eccelino was known
to be approaching, Pietro led out his forces to a position of
vantage amid reeds and rushes, where they could contend
with the Emperor the passage of the river Oglio, but could
not be themselves attacked.

On the other hand, the Venetian Podesta had his Milanese
troops in a situation which they could not easily abandon
for a return to Milan.

It was Pietro's intention to prolong the war, and to conquer
by force of time. But in Frederick 11. the Podesta had met
his master in tactics and ruse. Feigning to abandon the
conflict on account of the approach of winter, the Emperor
drew off his army. The Milanese then moved to return to
their homes, but there rushed upon them from the woods of
the valley, indeed from every hole and corner of the vicinity,
the hordes of the enemy. Nothing daunted, Pietro and his
men gave stout battle on the plain of Corte Nuova. So
valorous was their attack that the Imperial advance-guard
of Saracen mercenaries began to 3deld. But the Emperor
himself, with his son Henry, and with Eccelino and a great
host of nobles and knights of Lombardy, rode down on
Tiepolo's force and put it at last to ignominious flight. The
slaughter was considerable ; considerable also was the number
of prisoners. Among those led captive was Pietro, son of
the Doge.

But this victim of distinction could not appease the wrath
of Frederick, maddened as he was by the Venetian support
of the resistance of Treviso and Padua. Very soon the tyrant
Eccelino was marching an army on Venice. He penetrated
to the very banks of the lagoon, devastating the country as
he went ; then withdrew, only to order the execution of Pietro
Tiepolo. There are two accounts of the mode of this prince-
ling's death. One is that he was beheaded with barbarous
cruelty; another, that he was hanged on a tower in Trani,
over the seashore, in sight of a Venetian fleet.

io6 THE DOGES OF VENICE

This affront to the Venetians was the chief cause of their
leaguing with the enemies of Frederick — Rome and the Guelph
party. On his part, the Emperor stirred up Dalmatia against
Venice, and urged Pola and Zara to revolt. Meanwhile Venice
joined with Mantua, Bologna, and other cities in laying
siege to the GhibeUine town of Ferrara, held by its governor,
ToreUi Salinguerra. At first the siege appeared to be easy,
but when weeks and months dragged on, and naval re-
inforcements were called for, the Doge pressed upon the Senate
the need of bringing the siege to an end. Recalling the
excellent and worthy example of hisTprincely predecessors,
who had ever done their utmost to uphold and exalt the
dignity of the Venetian name, he announced his intention
of proceeding himself with the fleet to Ferrara, and of
assuming there the command of all forces.

Contrary to the law against association of sons in the
ducal administration, Tiepolo appointed his son Giovanni
Vice-Doge in his own absence. The time of national need
and of national mourning for the murdered Pietro was not
a time when this natural action of a father could be con-
demned as vmconstitutional.

Doge Tiepolo before Ferrara was valorous and astute, yet
it was the hunger of the garrison within, rather than the
prowess of the besiegers without, that conquered the city at
last.

Italian strategy, to call it by no harder name, had much
to do with the capture of the aged Salinguerra, himself a
strategist of no mean order, since he had defended the town
as much by flooding its landside suburb as by raising fortifica-
tions and using arms. Through the machinations of the
Bishop of Ferrara, Salinguerra was persuaded under promise
of safe conduct to pay a visit to the enemy's camp, there
to do homage to the Pope's legate, whom he honoured in a
religious sense, though he fought against him for temporal
advantages. Keeping to the letter of their promise, the
leaders of the allies brought the Ferrarese chief back to his
palace and sat down with him to a banquet of his giving.
Then by a gross violation of honour and hospitality, Travessera
of Ravenna made a bitter speech of attack, to which Salinguerra

MASTERFUL MINDS 107

was hardly allowed to reply, his numerous guests seizing
him and dragging him off to the ship of state of the Venetian
Doge.

Once captive, Salinguerra was treated with far greater
humanity than had been Pietro Tiepolo in the Emperor's
power. He lived for over three years, on parole, in Casa
Bosio at San Tonia, and dying there was buried with honours
in a vault in San Nicolo del Lido, where part of his tomb with
its inscription may be seen to this day.

On the return of his father from Ferrara, Giovanni relin-
quished his ducal office and sailed with a fleet against
Termoli, which place, with other seaports in Apuglia, he took
for Venice and the Pope. A little later, he bore a part in the
reconquest of Zara. This city had already been retaken in
1242 by a fleet commanded by Reniero Zeno, a Doge to be.
Michele Morosini had been appointed Count and Governor
of the city. But Morosini had a hard task to keep Zara
subject, and was forced to call upon the islands of Arbe,
Cherso and VegUa to help him. As a further aid, Venice
sent colonists from the lagoons to settle on the confiscated
lands of the Zaratine rebels. In 1244 the making of a treaty
with Hungary caused matters to settle down and to strengthen
the position of the RepubUc. Giovanni was made Count of
Ossero, and his brother Lorenzo, Count of Veglia. It would
seem to be about this time also that Lorenzo, another Doge
of the future, took his second wife, Marchesina, daughter of
Bohemund de Brienne, King of Rascia and Servia, and niece
of the Latin Emperor of the East.

The story of Tiepolo i and his sons, which story caused
definite modifications of the privileges of all subsequent Doges,
is a tale of ambition, action and slaughter. Tiepolo himself
appears in it as an enthusiastic upholder of his family greatness
and a determined conqueror of his country's enemies. Yet
it is as compiler and reviser of Venetian statutes, and as
builder and endower of Venetian churches, that Giacomo
Tiepolo has now to be remembered. He was assuredly one of
the great Doges. Bold and resolute in government, loyal and
devoted in diplomacy and warfare, and withal a man of intellect,
ideals, justice and piety, Tiepolo i, by his legislative deeds,

io8 THE DOGES OF VENICE

Imperial spirit and charitable benefactions, prepared a reign
of peace and prosperity for his immediate successor, Marino
MoROSiNi. Like Pietro Ziani, he retired from the cares of
office before death finally released him from them. From
his ducal sojourn of twenty-one years in the Palace on Rialto,
he went to his house, at San Agostino in the Ward of San
Polo, to die. He chose as his place of burial a church to
be designated San Giovanni e San Paolo, which he directed
his brother to build on a piece of marshy land that touched
on the parishes of Santa Maria Fornosa and Santa Martina.
The saints to whom the Doge's fane was dedicated were not
the Apostles John and Paul, but two obscure Christian soldiers
whose names appertained in Rome to the church where the
band of Dominicans who came to Venice soon after St.
Dominic's death in 1221, had first been established. It was
a sign of the mingled enlightenment and superstition of Doge
Giacomo Tiepolo and the age he lived in, that it was a
dear design of his later days to establish the Friars-Preachers
— who were at once the Revivalist and the New-Thought
Christians of his age — in a permanent abode in Venice, and
that he was led to designate an Amplum terrcB specium aqua
superlabente close to Santa Maria Fornosa, as the site for their
convent, through a vision he had of " the little oratory of
San Daniele full of flowers, and white doves with golden
crosses on their heads, flying to it, while two angels with
thuribles incensed the area and a voice proclaimed, ' Here
is the place I have chosen for my preachers.' "

On the sarcophagus erected in the fourteenth century for
the reception of the remains of this Doge and his son-successor
Lorenzo Tiepolo, there is a carving of birds flying and of angels
swinging censers, that recalls this vision.

After the three years' reign of Marino Morosini — a quiet
worthy with an honourable name — there came to the throne
another Doge of personalty and capacity, Re^niero Zend —
the Admiral-Conqueror of Zara.

Great pomp and many festivities were observed on the
day of Zeno's coronation — in February 1252 — and a comparison
of the ceremonial and manner of his enthronement with
the demonstration that attended the elevation of Domenico

MASTERFUL MINDS 109

Selvo in 1071, teaches much concernmg the development of
Venice and the growth of the ducal grandeur in the nearly
two hundred intervening years.

Instead of the haphazard train of fragile craft that
followed the little boat in which Selvo, removing his boots
as he went, sailed from the Lido to the Piazzetta landing,
twelve chosen patricians, richly apparelled, were sent in
the ducal barge of state with an escort of a fleet of warships,
to meet Zeno at the entrance to the lagoons. The Doge-elect
approached from Termo, near Ancona, where he had been
Podesta. Instead of the impromptu lauds and chants of the
lagoon oarsmen, and in place of the instinctive prostration of
the Doge before the Altar of St. Mark, and of the short oath of
loyalty to the Republic, taken afterwards in the Ducal Palace,
there were ceremonies of crowning, a long and elaborate
Promissione, and processions through the garlanded streets,
beneath banners richly emblazoned with family arms. Most
of all significant, there was a tournament on the Piazza,
" La plus bele place qui soil en tot U monde," as Da Canale, who
was not of Venetian birth, described it at the time.

To this tournament flocked the knights and other
chivalrous from Istria, Friuli, Treviso and many parts of
Lombardy. Yet the pahn of the jousts went to a Venetian,
young Marco Ziani (son of the former Doge Pietro), whose
wife was a daughter of the Marquis d'Este.

The Promissione of Reniero Zeno was the first to bind a
Dogaressa not to seek any official appointment or particular
rank on behalf of anybody, and not to send messages to the
Doge or his Council to the hurt or profit of anybody. The
Correttori and Inquisitori were getting into the swing of their
work and trying to provide for dangers ahead, guided by the
light of events in the past. The Dogaressa Zeno (Loicia da
Prata) proved to be more charitable than censorious or political.
She rebuilt the hospital founded by Orseolo i. The days of
Reniero Zeno were, however, days of fighting, and the great
expenses consequent on the war policies of his reign were
causes of the bread-riots which made his later years of office
stormy. The wars of Zeno seem to have been mostly for the
keeping open of Venetian trade-routes to the East, and, in

no THE DOGES OF VENICE

particular, for the subdual on the high seas and at Acre and
Trapani of the rival maritime power of Genoa.

At Acre, it was by the admirable command and dash of
Lorenzo Tiepolo, who forced the bar, wrought havoc among
the Genoese ships in harbour, and landed his troops before it
was known that he had even arrived in Syrian waters, that
the Venetians scored a certain success. Within two years
the same Tiepolo again encountered the Genoese near Acre, and
there, on the eve of battle, spoke to his men words of incite-
ment and command that are a revelation of the fire of his
spirit and an evidence of the admirable relations existing
between himself and his soldiers.

Calling upon them to remember that upon the next day's
encounter the honour of Venice and the security of her seas
depended, he charged them not to be frightened by the superior
numbers of the Genoese, since it was from a sense of weakness
that the enemy had beaten up such numerous reinforcements
from various parts. He and his men had been victorious
before over the same enemy in the same place. They would
conquer again, if order and discipline were strictly observed.
A shout went up at the conclusion of this brave harangue.
Vivo San Marco prottetore del Veneto Dominio J The battle
next day, so Romanin tells us, was " bloody, long and
obstinate." Both parties performed prodigies of valour. The
victory was for a long time undecided. At last it was gained
by the Venetians.

The battle of Trapani, a yet more desperate and decisive
engagement, was fought and won off the coast of Sicily, its
hero-commander on the Venetian side being Jacopo Dandolo,
a member of a family at great odds with the house of Tiepolo.

Despite the naval activities of Lorenzo Tiepolo, the reign of
Reniero Zeno was marked more by the quantity of advantageous
treaties signed in it, than by the number of armed victories
gained. And this, notwithstanding the revolution at Constanti-
nople, had greatly offended Venetian dignity and deprived the
Doge of Venice of many high-sounding titles . Zeno had not lacked
advisers who believed that the moment was at last opportvme
for the annexation of the Greek Empire by the Island Republic.
There were those in the councils and in the streets of Venice

MASTERFUL MINDS

III

even after the result of the battle of Trapani, had disaffected
Paleologos towards the Genoese, and made him send a mission
of friendship to the Venetians — ^who wished to see either the
restoration of Baldwin ii by the force of Venetian arms, or the
taking of Constantinople for a seat of government by the
Doge. In the end, however, the rule of discretion triumphed,
and there are no indications in history that Zeno did not
approve the truce and treaty he entered into with Paleologos
after three years of negotiations.

The most that can be said in proof of warlike dispositions in
Zeno is, that he allowed vigorous action to be taken when the
trade of Venice and the security of Venetian possessions were
threatened. It was not by his advice that the Bosphorus
squadron was drawn off for a time from its guard of Constanti-
nople, and sent to invest Daphnusia on the coast of Thrace.
The Constil Marco Gradenigo seems to have been the man
responsible for that short-sighted move ; one which, in the
opinion of many, was chief contribution, if not sole cause,
of the Revolution, since Paleologos had not had the temerity
to march on Constantinople, if thirty galleys of war flying the
Standard of St. Mark had stood sentinels of Venetian interests
in the Grecian capital.

Yet the increase of treaties did not provide for the Republic
all the funds that were required for its government and defence.
The battle of Trapani had greatly drained the Exchequer.

Many methods of extending the Ducal Excise were thought
of. The final decision of the Doge and his Government to raise
the duty on com was most unpopular. From every part of
the Dogado came protests. Violent meetings were held on
the Piazza, and the palace was menaced by a mob. The Doge's
attempts to parley and to make promises for the future were
met by ridicule. It was a lean time in Venice, and a populace
maddened by hunger is always ungovernable. His well-
ordered life and just administration could not help Zeno now.
He had not the true princely power of calming and inspiring
multitudes. He felt that, above all things, order must be
preserved, and sent for troops to put down the riot. The howls
of execration against the Doge and his policy, against war
and the war-taxes, were silenced at last. Force did the imme-

112 THE DOGES OF VENICE

diate business. Withdrawal of the tax pacified all minds in the
end. But, as the popular temper subsided, family furies broke
out. The quarrel was between the Tiepoli and the Dandoli.
Encounters between bearers of these names and their followers
became frequent. The climax of the feud was reached on the
day that Giovanni Dandolo and his brother overtook Lorenzo
Tiepolo in a street and gave him a dangerous wound. When
the Government intervened it was for the punishment of the
Dandoli, who were fined and forbidden any longer to hang their
escutcheons before their houses.

'J^hese things happened in the latter time of Doge Zeno,
who had had his days of prosperity and glory. Many had
been the ffetes over which he presided, for he ascended the
throne in a time when regattas and tournaments had become
frequent, and the festival ceremonies of Easter and Christmas,
of the Pig-Hunt and the Wedding of the Adriatic, had been
greatly elaborated. As pompous and as picturesque, perhaps
even as diverting to the multitude, as any of the feasts of the
year 1268, was the funeral of Reniero Zeno.

Enveloped in a mantle of cloth of gold, and with the buckler,
spurs, and helm of knighthood fastened on, he was conveyed
to his last resting-place — a vault in the Church of SS. Giovanni
e Paolo. A procession of clergy of every grade, of coun-
cillors, judges and representatives of all classes of the com-
munity, followed his bier. It was as if the population re-
gretted its hsisty judgment of their Doge at the time of the
corn-tax, and wished to make it known that all extravagances
of his war-poHcy — ^if extravagances there had been — ^were
pardoned.

The processions and pageants that celebrated the crowning
of Lorenzo Tiepolo reflected and personified the social de-
velopment and the artistic and industrial life of the Venetians
of the late thirteenth century in a still more striking manner
than had the fetes of the enthroning of his predecessor. Yet
with all the elaboration- of etiquette and ceremonial, popular
feeling was also informally expressed, and it was to be seen that
the gallant Captain-General was the nomination of the crowd
as well as of the Forty-One. There was long revision of the
Promissione, and much scrutiny of the actions of Doges defunct

MASTERFUL MINDS 113

and prospective, before the election was announced. During
the wait, as well as afterwards, the people ran about the streets
calling out Lorenzo Ti^olo e fatto Doxe ! When the bells in
the Campanile at last called to the coronation service, the
multitude in its enthusiasm flocked about the new Doge and
tore his clothes from his back. A curious way of demonstrat-
ing satisfaction, but one that had significance ! The removal
of the shoes of the Doge-elect, about to enter the Church of St.
Mark for his consecration, had been customary from earliest
times, and was, of course, a survival in the Christian, of Hebraic
ritual. The stripping off of garments — doubtless only the cap
and cloak of the ordinary patrician, to be exchanged at this time
for the ducal biretta and mantle — ^was an act due to the instinct
in the vulgar for appropriation of souvenirs. It was amplified
by degrees into the later practice of breaking up and throwing
into the Piazzetta aU the furniture in the palace belonging to
the lately deceased Doge.

When in shoeless and cloakless state Lorenzo Tiepolo
eventually knelt before the High Altar and swore fealty to the
State, he received from the Dean the standard of St. Mark,
and from the yoimgest of the senators the ducal biretta.

After the rites in the church, came the enthroning in the
palace, and then the clergy of St. Mark went in procession to
San Agostino, where the TiepoU resided, to fetch the Dogaressa,
Lorenzo Tiepolo's second wife, the Imperial Marchesina.
Arriving at the palace, Marchesina was enthroned, even as her
Prince had been. On the following day the fetes began with a
review of a fleet of war-galleys and some other ships privately
fitted out for the escort of Venetian trading- vessels on the high
seas. These gallant barks sailed past the Ducal Palace in fine
trim, and a hidden choir on the largest sang verses of compli-
ment and acclamation to the Doge and Dogaressa. When the
water procession was ended, that on the land began. All
the trades of Venice, represented by their master-craftsmen,
passed in groups, either workmanlike or fantastic, before His
Serenity, seated in state on a balcony of the palace giving on
the Piazza. Richly or grotesquely arrayed, as their humotir of
invention took them, carrying symbols of their avocations and
proceeding to the sound of instruments of music, tanners,
8

114 ' THE DOGES OF VENICE

furriers, clothmakers, goldsmiths, labourers, butchers, glass-
blowers, and many others played parts in this grand pageant.
The tailors, dressed in white dotted with vermilion stars, and
having fur borders to their cloaks, made a striking group ;
the gold-clothworkers, garmented in the fabric which was their
stock-in-trade, formed a glittering one ; while, with Cervantes-
like humour, the barbers, much privileged on account
of their performance of certain skilled businesses of human
surgery, masqueraded as knights-errant, two on foot and two
on horseback. They brought with them four young women
most capriciously attired. Stopping before the Doge, one of
these knights-barbers dismounted, and bowing low addressed
the Prince in heroic strain —

" Sire, — ^We are two wandering cavaliers, who have set out
to search for fortune and have laboured much for the conquest
of these four damosels. We are now come to your court, and
if any one denies our right, we are ready to defend it, Hke the
good knights that we are."

Entering into the spirit of the fantasy, the Doge replied
that the knights were welcome, that he held them in high honour,
and was sure nobody would dare dispute their happy conquest.

" Viva il nostra messa Lorenzo Tiepolo nobile doge di Ven-
ezia ! " cried the knights and maidens, and passed on.

The touch of buffoonery needed to delight the groundlings
was provided by the comb-makers, who carried lanterns filled
with little birds, which, as they passed the Doge, they let fly,
amid the laughter of the commoner people and the riff-raff
who ran about in all directions trying to catch the poor winged
things.

Having circulated in the Piazza, the processions passed on to
San Agostino to wait on the Dogaressa, and to bring her back to
the palace, where their pageant ended in a display of the various
works and manufactures of Venice. This show had been
specially arranged in honour of the royal Dogaressa, who passed
from room to room viewing the articles set out, and accepting
graciously presents of sweetmeats. It was designed also as an
object-lesson to all strangers within the city's gates, of the
flourishing condition of Venetian industry.

A famine darkened the first years of Lorenzo Tiepolo's

MASTERFUL MINDS 115

reign, and wars and rumours of wars never wholly ceased
throughout its seven years' span. Yet the conqueror at Acre
did not, as Doge, take active command of any fleet or army.
His thoughts were given more to business. The old sea-dog
and empire-builder held that the Adriatic Sea was in truth the
Gulf of Venice throughout its length, and that all foreign
vessels sailing on it, from Istria to Apuglia, were bound to pay
dues to the Doge. When he died, in 1275, Venice was in the
thick of a dispute with Ancona concerning his presumptions
as Husband of the Adriatic.

The remains of Lorenzo Tiepolo were committed to the
same tomb in San Giovanni 'e San Paolo that enclosed the
bones of his father, and a laudatory epitaph was set up over
him. The people's idol seems never to have lost his popu-
larity. Yet in some respects he disappointed the general hope
of him. He regarded as lightly as his father had done the
letter of his country's constitution, and perhaps saw no harm
in availing himself occasionally of the informations and the
influence of his office to do a little personal business. Despite
his popularity, popular opposition to an exclusively aristo-
cratic government grew during his reign. This growth was
manifested in the succession, after the short Dogeship of GiA-
COMO CoNTARiNi, of GiovANNi Dandolo — " the Uucouth " —
a statesman of markedly liberal views, and in the going over to
the popular party of Giacomo Tiepolo, Lorenzo's own son.

CHAPTER VIII
REFORMATION AND CONSPIRACY

A.D. 1280 TO I3II

ALTHOUGH Lorenzo Tiepolo had made it an early act
of his reign to send for Giovanni Dandolo, in order to
reconcile himself with the chief member of a family
between which and his own there had been feud, it does not
appear that their approach was more than formal. Dandolo
held only foreign and colonial offices in Lorenzo's time, and
their political principles remained widely separate.

The first act of the government of Giovanni " the Un-
couth " was the conclusion of a peace with Ancona, the terms of
which, by their omission of any reference to the presumptions
of Venice, show that Dandolo's way of ending the five years'
campaign was that of abandoning the arbitrary demands of
Tiepolo and Contarini, or at least of allowing the Anconese to
feel that if they paid toll for their ships on the Adriatic they
did it at pleasure.

Giovanni Dandolo was a man of rough presence, independent
mien and careless manners, yet he came of an illustrious and
ancient house and had the habit of command. He held, how-
ever, democratic views. The inconsistency of his character, as
of the times, was shown in the part he took in the arrangements
made between Philip, King of France, Charles (of Anjou),
Tyrant of Sicily, and His Holiness the Pope, for the reconquest
of Constantinople.

It was natural enough for a Dandolo to wish to revive honours
and a status that had belonged to an earlier and greater Doge of
the name (Enrico was not a direct ancestor of Giovanni), and
it was popular policy to be on the side of the Pope and all

REFORMATION AND CONSPIRACY 117

Italian princes and governors, against the Imperial power of
Germany. But it was not a democratic act to undertake a war
of aggression ; not even a deed of restitution, since the Prince to
be re-instated (son of Baldwin 11 and son-in-law of Charles of
Anjou) was the descendant of one who had gained his throne by
a conquest. Neither was it " constitutional " to aid the policies
of an autocrat who foistefl foreign governors, foreign troops,
and foreign laws and customs on a people with a history,
institutions and a spirit of its own. Yet Venice promised the
aid of forty vessels of war for the escort of the French and
Sicilian forces, with sufficient transports to take troops of her
own to Constantinople. It was further agreed that Doge
Dandolo himself should command the Venetian fleet. And
Doge Dandolo had set out, but for a fell occurrence.

The Sicilian Vespers turned the expedition from its course
and brought to a precipitate end the projects of the brother
of Louis the Saint, who held the Sicilian throne on behalf of
the Guelph, and against the Ghibelline interest. The Sicilian
Vespers changed also the destinies of many nations, and
diverted from an end — of glory or of failure — the career of
Doge Giovanni Dandolo. Charles of Anjou had other rights
to think of than those of his son-in-law. The expedition for
the re-taking of Constantinople never set forth.

So, after all. Doge Giovanni Dandolo is chiefly remembered
because of the Gold Ducat, " of greatest purity, like to, but
better than, the Florin of the Tuscan city," which was coined in
his time, and on which he was represented kneeling before the
figure of St. Mark. The series of golden ducats continued
regularly from Dandolo's time on for 513 years. They give
interesting details of the costume of the Doge ; particularly
evidencing the development of the form of the ducal biretta,
which in the fifteenth century became definitely known as
the Cor no.

The coining of the ducat was indicative of the bold rule of
Giovanni Dandolo, as well as of the steady commercial probity
of the Venetian Repubhc. Not only was this coin of gold first
minted in a period when earthquake and inundation had
created great poverty in Venice, and when it had become
necessary to raise a special loan for the subsidizing of the

ii8 THE DOGES OF VENICE

monasteries which were the relieving-houses of the day, but
throughout all the fluctuations of Venetian prosperity and
adversity its intrinsic value was never diminished, and by it the
credit of the Republic was long maintained at a high standard.

Another wise, yet popular act of this Doge, was his appoint-
ment of a commission to revise the laws. The Dandoli were
ever, by instinct, legislators and maintainers of justice. Yet
they were Princes also, in act and in nature, and Giovanni came
as near els any Doge of Venice to being a veritable King of a
free people. Never again, in all the history of the Republic,
was the ideal of a sovereign enthroned on the suffrages of
his people, approached as nearly as in the time of Giovanni
Dandolo.

But because a Dandolo could rule — an autocrat with a
democratic purpose — in accordance with liberal principles, it
was not to be assumed that the flowing tide of aristocratic
reform, which began with Doge Flabianico, had been rolled
back. On the contrary, the rule of " The Uncouth " marked a
period when the popular party in Venice made its last effort of
success to be recognized as a political party at all. At his
death, the people made their last throw for reassertion of
their ancient right of nominating and acclaiming their Doge.

The news of the decease of Dandolo was the signal for the
assemblage of a tumultuous mob on the Piazza, which cried
out that Giacomo Tiepolo — the liberal son of Lorenzo Tiepolo —
was Doge. The ideas of Giacomo Tiepolo were certainly not
as democratic as those of the people whose idol he had become,
and it was probably less because of his own views than on account
of the breaking of the laws of Venice by those who acclaimed
him, that the Senate requested him immediately, and for the
good of the State, to leave the capital, and thus to hide himself
away from those whom his presence excited to revolutionary
action.

Yet it would not be forgotten by the nobles who opposed
all tendencies towards a monarchial dynasty, that Giacomo
was not alone a son, but also a grandson of a Doge, and more-
over, that both his father and his grandfather had been singu-
larly popular wearers of the biretta. Another disadvantage in
Tiepolo for the Dogeship was his royal wife. It had been

REFORMATION AND CONSPIRACY 119

his own marriage to a Princess of Sclavonia, rather than that
of his father with Marchesina of Servia, that had caused the
introduction into the coronation oath taken by the octogenarian
Contarini, of the promise not to marry a foreign princess
without the consent of the CouncU.

The election of a rigid aristocrat, in particular of one who
had had no progenitor on the throne, had come to be inevit-
able. Either that, or the whole patrician order must forfeit
the privileges it had through centuries been most industrious
in acquiring. Probably Giacomo Tiepolo was no more than a
theoretic liberal. Certainly he did not act as a hardy democrat.
He made no stand for the liberties of the people, but, bowing
to the exactions of the Venetian constitution and the wishes of
his peers, he retired to Villa Marocco in the Trevisan March.

Then came to his own the great Pieteo Gradenigo, the
votary of St. Catherine, that Princess in Egypt who ex-
changed the splendours and ennuis of a barbaric court for
the simplicities and activities of a refined convent, resigning a
sensual marriage and her royal state for the enlightened and
devoted existence of a student-nun and saint-instructress.
Doge Gradenigo was a married man whose union with Tom-
masina Morosini, a daughter of a most typically Venetian
and aristocratic house, was significant of his character. Gra-
denigo beUeved in the strengthening of the patrician order of
Venice from within, yet he was not imperceptive of the dis-
tinction attaching to the Morosini family through the marriage
of his wife's aunt — an earlier Tommasina Morosini — to a King
of Hungary. One of the first enterprises of his reign was the
restoration of his cousin by marriage, Andrea, son of the Royal
Tommasina, to the Hungarian throne.

Although they kept strictly to every form and ordinance
of the constitution, the patrician electors knew that their
announcement of the accession of Pietro Gradenigo would
partake of the nature of a coup d'etat. He who had been the
leader of the aristocratic party during the popular reign of Dan-
dolo the Uncouth, was not the Doge of the people's choice.
So, when on St. Catherine's Day, 1289, it was called out to the
crowds on the Piazza, " Pietro Gradenigo is your Doge, if it
please you," the deputy of the Forty-One who made the an-

120 THE DOGES OF VENICE

nouncement, retired quickly and did not wail for applause. In
aU the history of the Republic, this was the first time there had
been need to proclaim a Doge so ctirtly. But the aristocrats
had their backs to the wall and meant to defend, not so much
their privileges as their principles, against all opponents.

Pietro Gradenigo— Proveditor of Capo d'Istria — was
an ideal leader for the oligarchy at this crisis. Suave,
gracious and most caressing in Ms manner to his friends,
he was firm, icy and severe with those who were his
enemies or who in any way differed from him. Inflexible in
view and purpose, he pursued the ends he set himself, without
turning to the right hand or to the left, and, as Doge, he re-
mained from first to last what beings of more impulse and truer
humanity can never be, consistent. Whether carrying political
reforms, making a stand against papal interferences, or putting
down insurrections, he accomplished all with a determination,
an astuteness and a finesse that won every battle. His engage-
ments were nearly always those of diplomacy. He never
resorted to force until every art of eloquence, persuasion and
tactics had failed. Thus he was essentially and pre-eminently
the man for his hour, the inevitable leader of the preponderat-
ing party.

The objects and methods of the closing of the Great Council
— Serrata del Consiglio — have been often misinterpreted and
much misunderstood.

It was not the design of Gradenigo simply to shut the
door of the legislature of Venice against aU newcomers, al-
though he had been spokesman of the demand of the three
chiefs of the Quarantia (chief criminal court and Senate) and of
the six Privy Councillors who, in the reign of the uncouth
Dandolo, moved for the exclusion from every Council of any
man who could not boast that his father or some paternal
ancestor had been a councillor of one kind or another, unless
his election were carried by a majority, firstly of the Doge and
his six advisers, and secondly of the Great Council. Even this
early demand for greater restrictions on the eligibility for
and access to the Chamber of Legislature had not been made
with the aim of narrowing the Great Council. It was intended
rather to prevent the inconvenience and jobbery promoted

REF0RMAt!I0N and conspiracy 121

by the method of its yearly renewal ; to purify it ; to keep it
hedged about from adventurers and speculators, who purchased
the birthrights of their betters and made cliques and con-
spiracies to gain their personal advancement. Doge Dandolo,
however, would have none of reforms in the direction of break-
ing down rivalry and stemming competition, and Gradenigo,
for his pains in suggesting them, was at the time (1286) sent
back to Capo d'Istria,. whence he had been recently recalled.

When, however, Gradenigo himself became the Doge, the
aristocrats had their opportunity to make the changes they
desired, and it was with his full sanction and active assistance
that, in 1297, a law was promiilgated by virtue of which the
names of all members of the Great Council during the previous
five years were submitted to the Quarantia and balloted for,
while a host of new members, proposed by the Doge and his
Privy Councillors, were also voted on. The design of Graden-
igo was to widen, rather than to narrow, the base of govern-
ment, although he wished to extend it only among those whom
he considered qualified to legislate by their possessions, race and
training. The patricians of Venice had no indulgence for in-
expert rulers ; nor could they suffer adventurers in politics.
The time had come when the natural growth of the home
population and the influx of the many foreigners attracted by
the trade facilities of the Republic made it necessary for the
limits of privilege and responsibility to be defined, and for the
loss of national character through the mixture of the " fiower
of the city " with ahens, to be guarded against. It is true that
from time to time foreigners who had been officers of the State
— as counts, castellani, visdomini and what not — were admitted
into the number of distinguished citizens who could be elected
as members of the Great Council, but, in the main, a Venetian
descent and an aristocratic heredity were the only titles to the
ofiice of a legislator, and it was the concern of the reformers to
bring into the Great Council all who possessed these titles.
Before Gradenigo's time, only a limited number of the Vene-
tians of noble family had been able to avail themselves of their
rights. The aristocrats had multiplied more than tenfold
since the days of the first Doge of the Badoer fine, and numbers
of them were excluded from the legislature, while men of inferior

122 THE DOGES OF VENICE

rank and foreign origin were clamouring to be admitted. A
nMddle-class of enterprise, energy and capacity had sprung up.
The Serrata consisted in drawing a Une once and for all between
the gentiluomini and the cittadini, and in debarring the simple
citizens from law-making and from aU part in the election of
the Doge. They were, however, allowed to qualify for secre-
tarial offices in the Government, and they could practise as
Avogadori (advocates) and rise to the Chancellorship, which
was a life-office. Besides the Chancellor's, the only other Ufe-
appointments were those of the Doge and the Procurators of
St. Mark. But the restlessness, ingenuity and capabihty of the
middle-class demanded more vents than these. A plot was
formed to assassinate the Doge.

It was held that a Gradenigo could not possibly be sincere
in wishing to admit to the Great Council " a greater number of
families than had hitherto been recognized as noble and equal
to the others," and that a Doge who built up against his own
authority such an impregnable rampart as a widened Great
Council must be influenced by some personal passion or griev-
ance. It was incredible to the lower sort of mind in Venice,
that any ruler should wish to limit the powers and preroga-
tives of his office by increasing the functions and the autonomy
of his subordinate councils and officers. Yet it had indeed been
the aim of the Reformer-Doge to preserve his country from
the rule of any autocrat, and to reduce it to a government so
definitely and extensively oligarchic, that it should be entirely
unassailable by foreign tyrants and home dictators. Against
the domination of one, by the submission of many — a domina-
tion that obtained in many neighbouring Italian states —
Gradenigo set his face sternly, and from his view of what was
best for Venice, no noisy ranters about Liberty nor turbulent
agitators for " rights " could move him. The malcontents
were not a numerous class, but in Marino Bocconio, a citizen
whom great wealth, a fluent tongue and a confident manner
seemed to qualify for a political career, they had a clamorous
leader. Gradenigo's spring upon this one was cat-like, but
decisive.

On a day in the year 1301, some three years after the Ser-
rata, Bocconio, with a considerable following of citizens, pre-

REFORMATION AND CONSPIRACY 123

sented himself at the doors of the Great Council during a sitting
at which the Doge was present, and demanded admittance for
the purpose of registering protests against the recent resolutions
excluding their order from the legislature. Cool and imperturb-
able, as if the occurrence were a customary incident of a session,
Gradenigo, after a show of consultation with his advisers, bade
the turbulents enter. Boldly the leaders of the popular
deputation entered the Assembly. Then the doors were shut.
What actually took place behind those closed door,s has never
been revealed. It seems certain, however, that the tone of
the discussion that ensued was, at least on the part of the Doge
and his patrician councillors, courteous, suave and pleasant.
The cittadini were convinced that their demands were favour-
ably received, and on the morrow they presented themselves
again at the palace ; this time with fair hope of being balloted
for as members. But Gradenigo knew of a sure way of silenc-
ing their clamours and did not hesitate to use it. There is an
account which says that forms of election were actually gone
through. This seems improbable, for upon a secret charge of
seditious machinations against the government and the Re-
public, Bocconio and his fellow-agitators had been already
condemned to death. Shrift was short, and within a few hours
of their jubilant thronging to the Council Hall, the leader of
the agitators and ten others were hanged in the public sight,
between the two red marble colimms of the " Loggia." Forty-
two other known and suspected accomplices of Bocconio were
banished from Venice then, among them being members of the
ducal families of Polani and Malipiero. The Serrar had not
excluded all favourers of a popular policy from the Great Council.

Gradenigo pursued his course undisturbed. An interval of
peace and prosperity seemed to proclaim the wisdom of the
step he had taken, and nothing occurred between 1301 and
1308 to shake the confidence of the Doge in his own methods,
or to destroy the general fear of his consummate art and
abUity.

In 1308 the Lord of Ferrara — Azzo iii, second in descent
from the Azzo d'Este who had been restored by the
Venetians after their defeat of Salinguerra Torelli in 1240 —
died, leaving as disputants for his dignities his natural son

124 THE DOGES OF VENICE

Fresco and his two brothers. On his deathbed Azzo iii had
commended both Ferrara and Fresco to the protection of the
Venetians, and, in view of the advantages to the islands of a
possession on the mainland, the Doge was more than disposed
to aid Fresco. But Ferrara was still, as at the time of the
Venetian siege of it for Gregory ix, a nominal fitef of the Papacy.
Pope Clement v at Avignon objected to the Republic posing as
the city's Suzerain. There were those on the Great Council who
objected also. These were the Guelphs. Gradenigo, however,
maintained with firmness the Ghibelline position — a position
which did not at this moment entail Imperial domination of
a formidable character. There was practically no German
Emperor ; only a number of princes who claimed the title from
time to time. On the other hand, the Pope at Avignon, in
strict alliance with the French Sovereign and the Angevin
Kings of England and Naples, was a power that tyrannized
over the liberties of many states and nations. Gradenigo held
fast to Ferrara. The militia of Venice and Chioggia were
embodied, and Giovanni Soranzo, a future Doge, led the first
draft of troops to Ferrara. The Venetians very soon suc-
ceeded in occupying the citadel of Tedaldo, which commanded
the approach to the city by the river Po, and neither the re-
sistance nor the cajolery of the Cardinal-Legate, who had levied
troops in support of the claims of the D'Este brothers, could
oust them from their point of vantage or turn their policy.
Even a letter sent direct from His Holiness at Avignon to the
Doge at Venice had no persuasive effect. The Papal envoys
were dismissed by Gradenigo with the answer that " Ferrara,
released by the arms of the Republic from the tyranny of
Salinguerra in 1240, had returned under the domination of the
House of Este, . . . and that Fresco having ceded the city to
Venice, no right resided in any one to gainsay the possession."
That popular feeling at this time was more on the side of
the Ghibelline Doge than on that of the Guelphic orators in
the Great Council who had deprecated an entry into a quarrel
with the Church, was shown by the violence offered to the
Pope's messengers in the thoroughfares they were obliged to
traverse on their departure. And that it was through no hot
petulance, but as a true representative of the preponderating

REFORMATION AND CONSPIRACY 125

party in the legislature, that Gradenigo subsequently declared
war against Ferrara, is proved by the fact that it required the
calling into existence of a special Board of War to empower
the Doge to make the declaration.

This declaration had the surprising effect of drawing from
the Cardinal-Legate the announcement that he, and presum-
ably the brothers d'Este, were ready to cede Ferrara to Venice
in exchange for a recognition of the Seignorial rights of the
Apostolic See and a payment to the pontifical treasury of an
annual sum of 20,000 ducats. It seemed as if the Chiirch had
abandoned its claims, and the Venetians, believing the game to
be in their hands, rather elaborately explained that it was not
in their power to pay the contribution required.

This further defiance was promptly replied to by a Bull
excommunicating the city of Venice, the Doge, the Privy
Council and aU and sundry who had advised, aided or counten-
anced the defence of Ferrara against the arms of the Church.
It is probable that this Bull was launched by the authority of
the Cardinal-Legate alone, for a space of ten days was allowed
to enable the Venetians to think better of their conduct, and,
presumably, for the obtaining from Avignon of a confirma-
tion of the interdict. The Ferrcirese question was then sub-
mitted to a special sitting of the Great Council, the Doge taking
care to impress his views on that body before any arguments
could be advanced against them. These views he put forward
with quite startling frankness. He had favoured the preten-
sions of Fresco d'Este against his uncles and the Pope, with the
object of aggrandizing his own country, for by every method
he desired to prociu-e the good, the authority and the glory of
the Venetian State. Opportunities of the kind that now pre-
sented themselves were rare. StiU more rarely did govern-
ments know how to use them. He then explained how excel-
lently he had used his. Fresco had already yielded him Ferrara
for an annual pension. He was convinced that the Pontiff
had been influenced by bad councillors and false information,
or he would never have directed against the Republic a measure
so harsh as the BuU before them. They might all be sure that
as soon as His Holiness knew the truth of the circumstances, he
would withdraw his anathema.

126 THE DOGES OF VENICE

Was Gradenigo so sure ?

Was it not rather his art to strengthen defiance with
courteous impUcation ?

The views of the opposition were then explained by Jacopo
Querini, a nobleman of courage and probity, unpledged to either
party, who took an independent course, although disapprov-
ing revolutionary methods.

Querini begged the Council to consider that the first duties
of a Government were to fear God, to reverence Holy ReUgion,
and to sliow deference to the Pontiff, who was the Vicar of God
on earth. They should consider also the cost of the war pro-
posed and the toU of Ulness and death it would exact ; the
present was rather a time for the repose and recovery of their
city from grave and continued campaigns, than for its still
further exhaustion.

A fury of discussion followed these speeches. The Querini
faction taunted the Doge's following with indifference to the
popular welfare. The ducal party accused their opponents
of lack of patriotism. The epithets " Guelph " and " Ghibel-
line " were first hurled and bandied in the Great Council
at this sitting. The aristocrats of Venice at this time first
definitely ranged themselves for and against the temporal
claims of the Apostolic See.

Gradenigo carried the day, and although the Holy Father,
when better informed of his Legate's action, of the ducal reply
to it and of a subsequent treaty between the Venetians and
Ferrarese, only repeated the thunders already given forth, the
Doge retained his attitude of sovereignty. On 27th March
1309, the Pope himself promulgated the excommunication,
whereby the Doge, his councillors, the citizens of Venice
and all others who should in any way aid, protect or counsel
them, were subjected to a confiscation of all their possessions,
movable and immovable, whether in Ferrara or elsewhere.
The bull further declared all treaties of the Republic nuU and
void, all trade relations of the Venetians severed, and all sub-
jects of the Doge released from their oaths of fealty. It was
permitted to any one to make slaves of the excommunicated
ones ; they were rendered incapable of giving testimony or
making wills, and were forbidden to succeed to ecclesiastical

REFORMATION AND CONSPIRACY 127

benefices. Prelates and clergy were ordered to leave
Venetian territory within ten days. And all this at a time
when papal bans were not matters only of form, but really
enforceable penalties.

Very soon, and aU over the Dogado, churches were closed
and sacraments and services suspended. Venetian residents
in foreign countries, and particularly in the influential kingdoms
of England, France, Arragon and Sidly, were despoUed and
maltreated. In several parts of Italy, Venetians were put to
death for no other faiilt but that they were Venetians. Yet
in full view of all these consequences, and on the very day of
receiving the papal anathema, Gradenigo, in Council, dispatched
to Giovanni Soranzo at Ferrara the following Imperial com-
munication : —

" Be it known imto you that we have to-day received the
notice that the Pope, on Holy Thursday last, pronounced against
us his threatened excommunication, unjustly and precipi-
tately, without even waiting for our ambassadors. Take stock,
therefore, of the forces you have with you and examine into
your condition generally, and if any improvement occur to you,
let us know it, for we are firm in our design to do all that in us
lies, manfully and effectively, to preserve our rights and our
honour. Especially have good care of our possessions and of
our navy."

But the submission which the terror of a human office
could not exact, was enforced at last by divine operation.
Pestilence rife in his army, and famine crying in his streets,
humbled Doge Gradenigo in the end. A mission, composed
of Carlo Querini and Francesco Dandolo-C^a'.s, was
sent to Avignon in 1311, with instructions to use all
their force to bring about a reconciliation. They ob-
tained one, on terms. The Republic was pledged to pay a
sufficient tribute in golden florins of Florentine coining. The
ducat, for all its vaunted superiority, was apparently not yet
valued as highly as the earlier minted coin. In any case, the
Florentines were then the leading money-changers, as the
Venetians were the leading merchants of the western world.

Money was borrowed at 3 per cent. for. the payment of
the Pope, and the negotiations connected with this loan, as

128 THE DOGES OF VENICE

well as other difficulties arising out of the dread excommunica-
tion, did not tend to raise the popularity of Doge Gradenigo ;
especially as, together with these disabilities, there had also
to be endured the abandonment of Ferrara.

The last Podesta appointed to that city from Venice had
been Marco Querini, brother of that Querini who had spoken
in the Council against the Doge's plan of war. Marco was a
very different man from his brother, being violent in argument
and action ; an incendiary whose flaming policies leapt to the
destruction of all obstacles to his plans and theories. His
daughter was married to Bajamonte (Bohemund) Tiepolo, son
of Jacopo Tiepolo and grandson of Lorenzo and the Princess
who was a daughter of King Bohemund of Servia. These two —
Marco Querini and Bajamonte Tiepolo — were the heads of the
great conspiracy against the life and power of Pietro Gradenigo,
Doge. The causes that made them revolutionaries, traitors
and assassins were both public and private. Querini's first
grievance was undoubtedly the failure of the attempt on
Ferrara. He had been made the Podesta in order that his
criticisms on the rule of that city and the conduct of the war
against it, might be silenced. He had taken the post in aU
probability because he wished to demonstrate the superiority
of popular methods of government over aristocratic ones.
But no chance had been given him to vindicate his theories,
and he had escaped from Tedaldo under conditions which had
suggested that his direction of affairs there had not been so
vigorous or persevering as it might have been. However
that may be, he was now all agog for the undoing of the man
and the government that had caused the disastrous war and
brought down the ruinous excommunication. Nothing that
Gradenigo or his party did was right, and the legality of an
appointment of a Count of Veglia to the Privy Council was
questioned by Querini one day in the Great Coimcil with a fury
that fired an explosion of the hates of both Government and
Opposition. There occurred in the Chamber a scene of
anarchy and disorder that surpassed the fierce conflict which
had followed the debate on the war. Some hand-to-hand
fights across benches at last settled the disputes and permitted
the election of pa Canale.

REFORMATION AND CONSPIRACY 129

Bajamonte Tiepolo's reasons for joining the conspiracy
seem all to have been private, although he whom the Venetians
had nicknamed il gran cavaliere was a believer in popular
rights and a follower in action of the theories of his father.
But Bajamonte had, in times when he had been Podesta in
Modena and Corona, taken sums of money in addition to his
salaries, and been condemned to make restitution.

There is no doubt that Gradenigo was a statesman of the
" Sea-Green Incorruptible " order, whom politicians less scrupu-
lous than he hated for his disinterestedness. Yet in spite of
the definite grievances and antagonisms of the individuEds
organizing the plot against the Doge, the Querini-Tiepolo
conspiracy grew in part out of the ordinary arrangements of
legitimate party-meetings. There were present at the con-
ferences in which the first sinister suggestions of an armed
attack were made, Marco Donato, Jacopo Querini and others
who never favoured the ultimate scheme, which was no less
a one than that of gaining possession of the Rialto and its
approaches, seizing the person of Gradenigo, and proclaiming
in his place the son of that Jacopo Tiepolo for whom the popu-
lace had clamoured at the time of Contarini's death, and who
was therefore counted by the conspirators the legitimate Doge
of Venice.

It was on the morning of St. Vitus's Day — 15th June 1310 —
that the revolutionists at last foregathered for their desperate
attempt. Rain was falling. It blew a hurricane. Thunder
and lightning added to the omens and discomforts of the
undertaking, and when out from the Casa Querini at San Matteo
near the Rialto, there marched at break of day two bands of
armed men who shouted Liberia ! and Morte al Doge Gradenigo !
the winds howled down their voices. One of the two troops
passed under the guidance of Querini, by the Calk
dei Fabbri and the Ponte del Malpasso, to the Piazza of
St. Mark. Tiepolo led his force by a more circuitous way.
There was another leader of the conspiracy — one Badoer —
who had agreed to raise a troop in Padua and join forces
on Rialto.

He was not waited for, although news had probably arrived
that he was on his way. Emerging on the Piazza, Querini,
9

130 THE DOGES OF VENICE

whose advance was prompt, found the position he had meant
to take by siorprise ahready occupied. Only on the previous
night had the Doge been informed by Marco Donate of the plan
for the morning, but men of Murano and Torcello had been
gathered during the few intervening hours of darkness. The
loyal Rialtines, and aU friends of the Doge and of law and
order, were not without reinforcements. Groups of patricians,
with their servants and dependents drawn up in arms, barred
the way to the palace.

At sixty, Gradenigo was as imperturbable as he had ever
been, and the resource and energy of his actions even more
marked. By daybreak he had mustered his army and received
the reports of faithful agents sent to reconnoitre the Casa
Querini and its vicinity. Avogadori and Signori di notte were
aU assembled, and the workmen of the Arsenal stood by for
a bodyguard. As Querini's troop came on to the Piazza, it was
broken by the first rush of that of the Doge. The band of
Tiepolo never reached the Piazza at aU. The Gran Cavaliere
seems to have wasted time in swagger and other fussinesses,
which he took for the proper deportment of a Doge to be. At
San Giuliano, about the middle of the Merceria, he received the
news of the rout of Querini's men. Calling a halt, he further
divided his own band and proceeded with one detachment by
the original route, while he directed the other to go by the way
of San Basso.

The householders of the Merceria, apprised by his halt and
by the pompous redistribution of his little force of the nature
of his expedition, began to offer his company violence, and
Tiepolo was just putting his men into movement, with the
cry of Morte ai tiranni! when a mortar which happened to
be lying on the sill W8is aimed at him from a casement.
The mortar missed the leader, but crushed the head of his
standard-bearer, whose blood bespattered Tiepolo. The thrower
of the missile was a lady, Giustina Rosso. Her " mortar-case-
ment " long remained her monument in Venice, and she was
subsequently rewarded for her act of daring by permission to
fly the standard of the Republic from the window on all fete
days, and by a promise that the rent of her house should never
be raised.

REFORMATION AND CONSPIRACY 131

The crushing of his poor standard-bearer seems to have
checked the advance of Tiepolo, and if he did not at once
discreetly retire, he was speedily driven back across the
wooden bridge of the Rialto by a sally from the Piazza of a
body of Gradenigo's more disciplined men. This bridge the
Gran Cavaliere immediately ordered to be cut down, and he
proceeded to entrench himself and to await the arrival of
Badoer and his Paduans. But the Doge had also reinforce-
ments due, and the Chioggians, under their Podesta, arriving
first, the advance of Badoer was effectually opposed. Grade-
nigo himself imdertook to dislodge Tiepolo, but, true to his own
nature, sent emissaries to parley with him, instead of soldiers
to attack. Tiepolo, however, would have none of words. He
did not at first know of the repulse of Badoer. But even
when information of the rout of the Paduans came, the Cavaliere
held out grandly, and chose not to put confidence in Gradenigo's
promises. A grey-headed and eloquent Privy Councillor
eventually prevailed with him, and Tiepolo consented to lay
down his arms, on the conditions that he himself and his
accomplices of aristocratic rank should be banished /for four
years to Dalmatia, that his less-distinguished followers should
receive pardon, and that he should surrender or make good all
money, arms and provisions abstracted from government
stores or private houses.

By subsequent resolutions of the Council, all these things
were carried out, and it was further enjoined that the houses
of Tiepolo at San Agostino and of Querini at San Matteo
should be demohshed, and all wives and families of the exiles
in Dalmatia also banished from the Dogado. Badoer was tried
for high treason. He had not the personal distinction and
popvilarity which made the clement treatment of Tiepolo
politic, and his offences against the State were aggravated
by his employment of foreign hirelings and his endangering
of the peace between Padua and Venice. He was beheaded
on Sunday, 22nd June 1310. A number of his associates
suffered the same fate on the following day.

It cannot be said that the indulgence shown by the Doge
and Council towards the Pretender Tiepolo was well requited.
In April 131 1 he appeared in none-too-friendly Padua, and

132 THE DOGES OF VENICE

presided there over a meeting that had been convoked in a
mysterious manner, and was intended to be a secret gathering.
But there were Venetian spies in Padua, and letters were
handed to the president, even as he urged his wrongs, that
caused his immediate departure. Precautions were taken to
prevent his entry — ^whether surreptitious or overt — into the
Dogado. There was still a party that pinned its hopes on tht
Gran Cavaliere. He returned, however, to Dahnatia and
gradually passed out of the realm of politics, becoming an old
man and a refugee who desired only to rest.

But for some years the danger of another rising in Venice
on his behalf remained an acute one. The true intention of
the drastic Serrar had yet to be understood. There were still
plebeians of wealth and intelligence like Bocconi who desired
outlets for their political aspirations, as well as nobles like
Tiepolo who might aspire to a regal destiny. So to prevent
surprises of attack and insurrection, and to eradicate roots of
sedition, it was decided to establish, as a guard for the troublous
times, a Council of Ten to act and order with the Chiefs of the
Forty, in such a manner as they should think proper. It was
agreed that the Ten might be drawn from every branch of the
administration, but that no family should furnish two members,,
and the Procurator of St. Mark could not be one. A limit of
time — ^till the following Michaelmas, it was then July — was
also set. But on September 29th, the Doge, whose attendances
at the Great Council had not recently been frequent, came
down and represented the expediency of prolonging the life of
the Board of Inquiry, as the Council of Ten was called, in
order that it might devote itself stiU further to rooting out
treason. By a series of similar appeals to the Great Council,
the privileges of the Ten were confirmed for five years. Thus
was estaHished an arbitrary committee, the ofifice of which was
to render nugatory the tsnranny of individuals and the turbu-
lence of factions.

But before this first Board of Ten had been established
a full year, the organizing mind and peremptory will
chiefly instrumental in founding it had ceased to work
and exercise.

Doge Gradenigo died on August 13th, 1311. Grandly he had

REFORMATION AND CONSPIRACY 133

lived, but simply he was buried. There was too much agitation
in the city for a pompous funeral to be given him with any
safety. He departed this world, as in some senses he had re-
sided in it, with surrender of his prerogatives and in contempt of
popular homage. Yet the character and the destiny of the man
were regal, and he consolidated a system of government that,
for good and ill, was to endure in Venice so long as the Republic
retained its autonomy. It was a system of infinite artifice and
wonderful intelhgence. It prospered greatly when the Doge
presiding over it could rise superior to it. It languished when
the ducal chair was occupied only by an official. It avoided
the shocks, the violences, and the weaknesses both of more mon-
archical and of more democratic systems. At the same time,
it suffered the loss of truer human and finer spiritual elements,
and was, in consequence, a system tending to crystallization
and contraction, rather than to growth and expansion. For
aU that, it showed to mankind, in many grand periods and high
phases of Venetian wealth, culture and power, that government
by a true aristocracy has value, and that no amount of good
intention and high design in governors or governed can com-
pensate for lack of training or for loss of mastership in the
arts of control and organization.

CHAPTER IX
WATCH-DOGS AND HOUNDS OF WAR

A.D. I3II TO 1354

WHEN Gradenigo died, there was only one among all the
nobles of Venice who could be said to claim the Doge-
ship by a personal distinction. This one was Stef ano
Giustinian, who had been many times an accredited Ambassador
for Venice. He received a large majority of the votes, but
immediately refused the of&ce and retired to the monastery of
San Giorgio. There, in full view of the Ducal Palace, which
looks ever across the water on to the island of the monks,
Giustinian changed his senatorial garb for a religious habit,
and withdrew altogether from the political scene.

The putting forward of a second candidate proved a diffi-
cult task. Other Senators and Councillors were either too
capable or not capable enough. The spirit of the Serrata made
the patrician voters fearful of the dominance of popularity
yet anxious for the dignity of their deputy on the throne. In
particular, at this moment, they desired a Doge who would
help Venice to win back the favotir of the Pope. As the
electors ruminated, each one hesitating to make a nomination
to which another might take exception, they perceived, through
the windows of the Sala del Scrutinio, the aged Councillor
Marino Zorzi crossing the Piazzetta, followed by his servant
carrying a sack of loaves for the relief of the prisoners in the
Pozzi. These Pozzi were the cells on the ground floor of the"
east wing of the palace, through the barred windows of
which it was customary for the incarcerated to stretch hands
for charitable doles.

The thought flashed instantaneously that this man of

WATCH-DOGS AND HOUNDS OF WAR 135

piety, who, only eight years before, had been an Ambassador
for the Repubhc to Rome, was the Doge they sought — the Doge
from whom the Father of all pious could not withhold absolu-
tion. Forthwith, and with one voice, they elected Marino
Zorzi. Yet so opposed were these Venetians to the intro-
duction of any personal feeUngs into their system of ad-
ministration, that even as their generous impulse swayed them,
they were affrighted, and thought of all the contingencies their
weakness might give rise to. On the occasion of another elec-
tion, an aspirant might recommend himself by performance of
a similar pious or patriotic act beneath the windows of the Sala.
Before the successor of Zorzi was chosen, it was decreed that
in times of ducal elections all windows and loggie of the palace
should be closely shuttered.

The year before his accession, Marino Zorzi had refused,
upon the excuse of his age and infirmities, to go upon an em-
bassy of greeting to the Emperor Henry vii on his entry into
Italy. But he seemed to regard his election as Doge as a direct
call of God, and accepted the onerous ofhce without demur.
Without demur also, he took the ducal oath in which, by an
added clause, he promised not to make any alterations in the
decrees prohibiting aU members of the Tiepolo family, and
other followers of Bajamonte Tiepolo, from ever again taking
office in, or serving on councils of the Venetian Government.
The ten months of Zorzi's Dogeship seem to have been un-
troubled by conspiracies, although the suppression of the
Tiepoli had not expelled all rebel tendencies and personal
ambitions from Venice. But so long as the city lay under the
Pope's ban, the energies of both the government and the opposi-
tion remained more or less dormant, and even the piety of a
Doge who in his lifetime founded the Church and Monastery
of San Domenigo, and at his death left a bequest, with detailed
directions for the institution of an asylum for indigent children
of both sexes — ^the first institution of the kind in Venice, and
the germ of the present Asili Infantili — did not prevail for the
removing of the papal censure.

Instead of bringing Venice into better favour with Clement
v. Doge Zorzi sought rather the friendship of the Emperor.
His refusal, in Gradenigo's time, to give greeting for Venice

136 THE DOGES OF VENICE

to the Imperial traveller, indicated some Guelph leaning, and,
at the time of his election, he was counted a Guelph. But
when the Emperor first came to Italy, it was not thought that
the Pope would prove so long obdurate, and it had to be seen
whether the German monarch would receive the general hom-
age of the ItaUan States, and win his way to Rome for coronation.
To the letter sent by Henry of Luxembourg to Gradenigo,
demanding a suspension of hostilities until the Monarch should
have time to settle the general peace of Italy, and requiring
the feudal services of Venice for himself as Roman Emperor,
the haughty Doge had replied congratulating His Majesty
upon his arrival in Italy, and offering to send him ships, should
he wish to make the passage to the capital by water. In answer
to the superb direction to cease from fighting, Gradenigo had
said that he was not at war with any power; he had only
some ^differences with the Pope which he hoped soon to see
terminated, though he would be obliged by the good of&ces of
His Majesty in hastening the reconciliation. As to the services
presumed to be due from the Republic to the Emperor, the
Doge did not know what they were. If any existed, the
Venetians would render them. In the meantime, they desired
to pay all honour and respect to His Majesty.

It is said that the language of the envoys who presented this
letter to Henry of Luxembourg, was fully as ambiguous as that of
the missive. No wonder, therefore, that a bishop of the Emperor's
suite wrote concerning the Venetians and their political atti-
tude at this time, that they appeared to consider themselves a
veritable quintessence (or fifth element), and recognized neither
the Church, nor the Emperor, nor the sea, nor the land !

Venice and Genoa were the two States of northern Italy
which had not permitted their ambassadors to swear fealty to
the German Sovereign.

But when at last, with the support of the GhibeUine
Visconti of Milan, the Emperor had so far triumphed over the
Guelph party in Italy as to be resting at Cremona on a fair way
to Rome, he felt sufficiently recovered from the rebuffs of Grade-
nigo, to write to Doge Marino Zorzi inviting him to send an
honourable deputation to his coronation ceremonies. Four
Venetian deputies were chosen — Pietro Zeno, Guido da Canale,

WATCH-DOGS AND HOUNDS OF WAR 137

Vitale Michieli, and Belletto Giustinian — and feudal service was
rendered to the extent of a ducal permission to the Emperor
to enlist, at his own expense, as many as fourteen hundred
Venetian bowmen for his army. That there were in the
Dogado shooters enough to furnish such a large detachment
for the Emperor's service, was due to the obligation laid on all
citizens by the reforming hand of Doge Gradenigo, to exercise
themselves in sharp-shooting.

It was undoubtedly pohtic of Doge Zorzi to temporize a
little with the Emperor, particularly as he refrained from
going to any extreme of friendship that could offend the Pope,
who sent three Cardinal-Legates from Avignon, to crown
Henry in the Church of St. John Lateran. St. Peter's
and the Vatican were held meanwhile by King Robert of
Naples, chief of the Guelph party, who remained stoutly
inimical to the claim of the Luxembourg Prince to be called
King of Italy and Roman Emperor. But the quintessential
attitude of Venice was always to be independent of, though,
as occasion demanded, inclining towards both Guelph and
GhibeUine, Pope and Emperor, sea and land. This attitude,
Zorzi was Venetian enough, for all his pieties and sincerities,
consistently to maintain. It was the same with the wars
and the commercial treaties. When rebellion broke out once
more in Dahnatia, he countenanced a heavy loan for the
expenses of the prospective war, and wrote peremptorily to
the King of Hungary reminding him of the ancient rights of
the Venetians over Zara, and begging him to give neither
asylmn nor help of any kind to the rebels of that city. He
did not live to watch the progress of this Dalmatian war, but
he did live to compose a peace between Venice and her old
rival Padua. This achievement must have been one of
the few grateful tsisks of his short reign. By the agreements
of April 1312, certain regulations favourable to Venetians
concerning trafific on the rivers Brenta and Adige were laid
down, and the Paduans were allowed to get salt from Chioggia.
The Doge who succeeded to Marino Zorzi was a person
of very different order. Giovanni Soranzo had been in his
time Podesta of Chioggia and Captain of an expedition
against the Genoese. He had taken Caffa and defended

138 THE DOGES OF VENICE

it against the Tartars ; seized all the war and merchant ships
of the Genoese fleet and returned a hero to his country.
Later he had fought against Padua, and taken part in the
war with Ferrara, of which city he was nominated Podesta
in 1308. In the year following, he came back to Rialto, as a
Procurator of St. Mark.

Soranzo came to the throne in a time of war, and his genius
as a commander of men and organizer of campaigns, profited
Venice not a little. Besides punishing the Zaretine rebels
with vigour, he delegated his right of command to capable
soldiers, and established in Dalmatia such a wholesome terror
and determined system of goverrmient, that within a very
few years, not Zara alone, but Trau, Sebenico and Spalato
became fully subject to the Republic.

To this man of war and business Pope Clement v eventually
yielded the pardon for Venice that he had withheld alike from
the haughty and subtle aristocrat and from the man of charity
and devotion. A letter from the Doge to the Commune of Treviso,
bearing date 14th February 1313, announced the conclusion
of an agreement with the Pope. Clement had at last
received the 100,000 florins Doge Gradenigo had considered
too dear a price for the papal blessing. The negotiator of the
affair was Francesco Dandolo, surnamed Cane (Dog).

It was for long a popular belief that Francesco Dandolo
obtained his surname from a diplomatic feat in being led
into the presence of the Pope by a chain attached to a dog-
collar round his neck. The affix, however, was not an uncommon
one to distinguished names of that time, and certainly apper-
tained to this Dandolo before he went to Avignon. Yet it is
to be believed that he appeared before the Pontiff in the
character of a faithful hound, entirely at the disposition of
His HoUness. It was a bold jest, if jest it were — it may
have been a ceremonial manner of showing submission and
devotion to superiors — ^but Francesco Dandolo was bold. A
sturdy Venetian to the backbone, his name fitted him also as
a watch-dog of the constitution. More Guelph than Ghibel-
line, he wanted Italy for the Italians, and the Pope of Rome
in his own place ; not Italy for the Germans and the Roman
Pontiff a bondman to France.

WATCH-DOGS AND HOUNDS OF WAR 139

But the time of Can Dandolo's dogeship had not yet come,
and Soranzo, the man of action and management, ruled accord-
ing to the strict letter of Venetian law. He was almost without
emotions, and neither for himself nor for Venice had any
romantic plans. Like his predecessor, Zorzi, he was pledged
to pursue with stern disfavour every member of the family
of Tiepolo, and the fact that a daughter of his own— named
Soranza — had married Nicolo Tiepolo, did not prevail with
him to seek mercy for the outlaws. On the contrary, he
performed so well his function as part of the governmental
machine, that poor Soranza Tiepolo was kept for twenty-five
years a prisoner in a convent. In an ideal Republic there is
no place for parental tenderness or kingly mercy. All the force
and the feeling in the man Soranzo were subjected wonder-
fully to the interests of the State. He vindicated far more
thoroughly than had Gradenigo himself, the theories that
Gradenigo advanced. Yet he was not wholly without pre-
dilections of view and temperament, and he did not consider
the papal excommunication to be a blight of such a horrifying
nature as to cause him to despair of the progress and develop-
ment of his native land.

The prosperity of the Republic had indeed begun to revive
even under the cloud of the papal ban. So stable had Venetian
institutions become, it was difficult to shake them. Better
than all, good weather and good trade had brought a sense of
physical well-being that made the critical and the captious, as
well as the cheery groundlings, applaud Soranzo's administra-
tion. The wisdom of putting government entirely into expert
hands seemed justified indeed of her children. An extra-
ordinary increase of the population throughout the Dogado,
and others of those causes which can be numbered only among
blessings of Heaven, certainly conduced to Venetian prosperity
at this time, but to the activities of Soranzo must also be
attributed much of the development of interior wealth, and of
the extension of exterior trade relationships, which took
place in his reign. On the seas, the Venetian fleets kept the
Genoese adventurers in check, and swept the waters of the
Levant and the Grecian Archipelago clear of Asiatic enemies
and European rivals. It was said of the Captain Giustiniani

140 THE DOGES OF VENICE

Giustinian, when he sailed to recover from Ottone Doria, the
Genoese Commander, some Venetian merchant-vessels cap-
tured at Lagazzo, that he had victory in his bosom. The
phrase may well have been a spontaneous one on Venetian
lips at this time. It could have been applied with equal
fitness to Doge Giovanni Soranzo in all that he undertook
for the defence of Venice and the enlargenlent of Venetian
power.

In the year 1314, Soranzo made a treaty with Frederick,
King of Sicily, and later received from his successor Alfonso
a letter excusing himself for any molestations of the Venetians
which he might have caused. In 1317, a commercial treaty
between the Doge of Venice and Matteo Visconti, Lord of
Milan, was concluded, and compacts advantageous to the
wealth and peace of Venice, with Bologna, Brescia, Como and
other northern cities of Italy, followed at intervals. With
the King of Hungary, the Count of Flanders and the King of
England also, commercial arrangements were concluded.
The business with England was chiefly about wool. Venetian
traders sailed to Boston in Lincolnshire, whence they shipped
wool to Flanders, there to be woven into or exchanged for
cloth and garments which were brought south to furnish the
shops of Venice and to sell in Dalmatia and the Levant.

In the Far East, too, Soranzo had advantageous dealings ;
not alone with the Emperor Andronicus of Constantinople, by
whom the Doge was styled Dominus terrarum et insularum sua
ducatori subjectarum, but also with the Sultan of Tunis and
with rulers in Trebizond and Persia.

Among his home activities were the building of new
houses for the Procurators of St. Mark, the enlarging of the
chapel of St. Nicholas in the Ducal Palace, the extension of
the Arsenal, and the improvement of the condition of the
streets and bridges. The ihdustry of mirror-making was
also begun in Venice, and to increase the security of the public,
there was added to the order of police called Signori di notte,
another body of guardians, known as Cupi sestieri.

To the end of the sixteen years and six months of his reign,
Soranzo retained his prestige and his popularity, and when he
died he was carried in wonderful pomp and amid general

WATCH-DOGS AND HOUNDS OF WAR 141

lamentation through the hall of the Signori di notte, to the
Church of St. Mark, where the Dogaressa with her ladies and,
as a special concession, her incarcerated daughter Soranza
Tiepolo, waited to receive the dead husband and father, whose
richly habited form, stretched on a bier, was borne on the
shoulders of state officials and followed by a train of councillors
and nobles. Soranzo's sword, shield and golden spurs pro-
claimed him, so long as those patricians carried him high, the
chief of the Republic, but when they left him at last, low in
the baptistery, the coat-of-arms of his house was the only
sign put upon his tomb to tell that a Doge lay sleeping there.
So they committed the virile and executive Soranzo to his
rest, and since the govemmient of Venice did not expire with
a dying Doge, the Privy Councillors and heads of the Forty
speedily retired to attend to affairs of state. A little later and
the Campana rang for the assembly of the Great Council.
When this was summoned, an ancient rose, spoke a few words
of condolence and praise in regard to the dead Doge, then
called upon all present to pray to God for the election of a
good prince to follow him.

To this prince, whoever he might be, was presently voted
an increase of revenue ; the former annual payment of 4000 lire
being raised to 5200 with the grant of a further sum for initial
expenses on his accession. This sum was, however, to be
subsequently repaid. Allowances were also given for addi-
tional household servants and their better apparel, and it was
further decreed that a zoja, or diadem, should be made and
put into the charge of the Procurators of St. Mark, for the
decoration of the Doge on occasions of high ceremony. Yet
even as provision was made for an augmentation of the state
and grandeur of the governmental head, rules were added
to those which limited his personal power and authority.
He was not to call together an Arengo — or popular assembly —
of his own impulse ; neither was he to give any orders in
regard to the affairs of San Marco, although he remained a
patron of the church.

There is no doubt that, throughout all these preliminaries,
the electors knew very well whom they were going to choose.
In the opinion of nobles and people alike, there was at the

142 THE DOGES OF VENICE

moment one Doge who had to be, and when the news of the
election of Francesco Dandolo Cane went abroad, multitudes
ran to acclaim him and to carry him to the palace to take
his oath of office. The new decree that no Doge should ever
convoke a popular assembly of his own accord had not been
without design. Francesco Dandolo was one who might
have been tempted by his own popularity and his natural
facility in winning personal respect, to exercise the
prerogatives of a Monarch. That he looked upon his office
as a sacred chaise, not conferred upon him only by the
suffrages of his peers, was shown upon the day of his election,
by his turning aside from the straight course to the palace
towards which his thronging admirers urged him, to enter
the church. Prostrating himself before the altar, he received
his investiture from the Dean, and the administration of his
oath from the populace at large. Issuing at last from the
Beisilica, bearing in his hands the banner of St. Mark, he
mounted to the upper floor of the palace — the boisterous
throng still pressing on his heels — and swore to the Ancients of
the Councils to observe his Promissione. Then presenting
himself on a balcony, he spoke to the people, promising them
justice, abundance and an honourable devotion to the Republic,
with benevolence for all who were well-behaved.

His speech to the crowd ended, the new Doge passed
with a great following to the Chamber of the Great Council,
where he took his seat for a few minuteis on the ducal throne.
He then paid a formal visit to the Hall of the Signori di
notte, whence he returned to the Council Chamber, before going
on to his private apartments. Later, he gave the customary
collation to the various Councillors, who presented to him the
Ballotino, by which name was known the boy who, at the
election of the Doge, drew the ballots for the successful candi-
date from the vase into which the electors dropped them.

The ceremony of complimenting the Dogaressa and re-
ceiving her oaths was then proceeded with in her own home,
after the manner already established in the day of Marchesina
Tiepolo, but with touches of added consequence. The wife
of Francesco Dandolo was brought to the Piazzetta in the
Bucintoro. She paid her devotion and offered her

WATCH-DOGS AND HOUNDS OF WAR 143

oblation in San Marco, and was conducted with state to a
throne set up for her in the Hall of the Signori di notte. On
this she sat for a few moments, with her ladies grouped
about her. At the inauguration banquet given by her,
she feasted all the representatives of the arts and industries
of Venice, who had previously — some on horseback and some
on foot — passed in procession before her. The festivities were
brought to an end by the formality of summoning the popula-
tion of the Dogado, " from Grado to Capodargine," ^ and even
from Veglia, by heralds who presented to each district a standard
of St. Mark, to take their oath of fealty to the new Doge.

It is indisputable that Francesco Dandolo's conception
of the character of the ducal office belonged to an age that
had passed. He felt himself divinely appointed to a true
sovereignty, and although he paid respect to the laws, as
a lawgiver should, he would not slavishly follow regulations
and customs which prevented his use of executive oppor-
tunities. In the same way, his conception of the destiny of
Venice was of an old-fashioned order. He believed in her
mission to aid in the liberation of the Holy Land from the
Turkish grip, and, like both his predecessors of his name,
he had faith that an alliance with Constantinople was a meet
partnership for the Queen of the Adriatic.

An early alarm from the East drove Dandolo into a
special compact with the Greek Emperor and the Knights
of Rhodes. Upon the request of the King of France, he
was quickly willing to furnish arms, men and provisions
for the new crusade against the Ottoman Turks, which Philip
of Valois so greatly desired as a means of uniting with him,
in a common warfare, his dear brother Edward iii of England,
whose naval and military preparations, at the time, were
all directed towards the conquest of France for the British
crown. Owing, however, to the landing of King Edward
in Philip's domain, the Crusade never sailed from the port
of Venice, and Doge Dandolo was very soon more than
occupied by quarrels and invasions much nearer home than
northern France or eastern Greece and Thessaly.

The many cities of Italy which had not taken the elaborate
1 Cavargere.

144 THE DOGES OF VENICE

precautions against a popular or tyrannic government that
Venice had always been so careful to devise, were now nearly
all dominated by certain families and ruled by tyrants,
ferocious or reasonable, cruel or kind, as the case might be.
The Visconti governed Milan and its dependencies, Florence
was a conquering Commune bent on the subjugation of Lucca,
the grip of the Gonzaga was on Mantua, the Estes were reseated
at Ferrara and ruled Modena, and the Scaligeri (Alberto and
Mastino, nephews of the famous sleuthhound of savage
quality, Cane della Scala) were lords of Verona, Vicenza,
Brescia, Feltre, Padua and other cities, which, as links of a
chain, carried their dominion right across Italy.

Now Padua was near enough to Venice to make the Scala
lordship over it a true menace to the peace and integrity
of the island republic. But since it had been with the assent
and even with the co-operation of the ruling party in the
State of Venice that the Scaligeri had established themselves
in the celebrated university town, the Venetians could not
quarrel with them for their propinquity. When, however,
the active and ambitious Mastino took possession of Treviso
and, both at Padua and Treviso, levied extra tolls for naviga-
tion of the river Po, and began, moreover, to rebuild the
salt works and tower of defence at Petadebo, just below
Padua, the Venetians could brook no longer the insolent,
if silent, threats of the tyrant, and sent him letter after letter
of expostulation.

To these documents of state, signed by Can Dandolo,
were attached the ducal seals in lead. Portentous missives
they were, yet Mastino's only comment on them was, " Why
does the Doge send me so much lead ? He had better keep
it to roof the campanile of St. Mark ! "

The famous bell-tower on the Piazza, which had been
first erected in the year 888, had at this date — about 1335 —
been rebuilt, but some work on the summit waited to be
done, and its unfinished appearance was made a reproach
to the pompous Venetians by their jealous neighbours.
Scala's words were taken as a challenge. Dog had met dog.
The old watcher of Venice had, however, some misgivings
about offering battle to the young Mastiff of Milan.

WATCH-DOGS AND HOUNDS OF WAR 145

Now Anna, only daughter of Doge Gradenigo and his
Dogaressa Tommasina (Moros-ini), had been married in her
father's time to Jacopo Carrara of Padua, and had already
been instrumental in establishing a long-sought peace between
Venice and Padua. She had also exerted herself to make
peace between the Scaligeri and her husband, and had been
rewarded by her Jacopo's elevation to the Signory of Padua.
At the time of this triumph, her cousin Marco Gradenigo
had been sent from Venice to be Podesta of Padua. Anna
died three years later and three years before her husband's
death, leaving a daughter — ^Taddea — who seems to have been
her only child. Upon the death of Jacopo himself, he was
succeeded in his dignity by his nephew Marsilio Carrara,
who reigned for about four years, what time Taddea went
to live with her mother's relatives in Venice. In 1328, Can
della Scala marched against Padua once again and Marsilio
offered him no resistance, but agreed to govern Padua thence-
forward as a deputy of della Scala. In the following year —
1329 — ^Taddea was married to Mastino della Scala, already,
by the intervening death of his uncle, become Tyrant of
Milan.

In July of the same year the brothers della Scala made
a state entry into Padua. Alberto, the pleasure-loving and
indolent one, immediately settled down there, while the
more active and ambitious Mastino hurried on to fresh con-
quests and other political achievements. Both brothers,
however, became jealous of the authority exercised by Marsilio
Carrara in his native town, and the erstwhile Lord of Padua
was nominated by them Podesta of Vicenza. A hideous
wrong was further inflicted on the Carrara family by Alberto's
seduction of the wife of Uberto Carrara, cousin of Marsilio.
Thus the family friendship, which might have been brought
about by the marriage of Taddea and Mastino, was ruptured by
the relations between Alberto and Uberto, and by the jealousy
of Marsilio, with which the brothers wete inflamed.

Matters were in this state when the haughty and treacher-
ous Mastino made his offensive remark about Doge Dandolo's
leaden seals. The first reply of Venice to the insult was to
suspend all commercial relations with Milan and to prevent
10

T46 THE DOGES OF VENICE

the shipping of salt from the Venetian seas . Mastino responded
to this by introducing trade from Germany and by extending
the salt works at Petadebo. The protest of the Venetians
soon resolved into an occupation by the Chioggians of ground
close to the tower of defence, whence they could molest the
new industry of della Scala.

Not being prepared for war, Mastino sent ambassadors to
the Doge to recall to him the ancient amity existing between
their peoples and themselves. The castello of Petadebo, he
declared, was for defence, not for offence. In regard to the
salt dues and other river tolls, each prince, he maintained,
had a right to augment or reduce his own, and before quarrel-
ling on account of Veronese encroachments, the Venetians had
better restore the lands which had previously formed part of
the Trevisan country and were now illegally held. The
Doge made answer to this that Venice also desired peace,
but under certain conditions. Verona must not add to arrange-
ments of existing conventions, tolls that interfered with
Venetian traffic ; must not make her own salt ; must not disturb
the legitimate possessions of the Venetians on Trevisan soil ;
must not prevent the products of the mainland coming freely
to Venetian islands.

To these demands della Scala took care not to reply until
he had completed the tower at Petadebo and furnished it with
munitions of war. He then sent a message that it would not
be becoming in a great prince to demolish what he had just
built ; nevertheless he was willing to submit the rights in
discussion to the judgment of arbitrators.

" First destroy the tower," said the Doge, " then our cause
can be tried."

" I have no commission to add words to my message,"
replied the ambassador, and quitted the ducal presence.

There were few upon the CouncU who did not feel that
nothing was now left for Venice but to declare war. Among the
few, however, was Doge Dandolo. He held the time-honoiared
views concerning the mission of his country, and believed that
the wisdom and the strength of Venice lay in detaching herself
from all continental affairs. The risks of a war, waged on
land against the possessor of Verona, Vicenza, Padua, Treviso,

WATCH-DOGS AND HOUNDS OF WAR 147

Feltre, Belluno, Ceneda, Brescia, Parma and Lucca, seemed to
him too great. It was not the part of Venice to seek alUances
and to engage mercenary troops and foreign generals, yet all
these things would have to be done if armed conflict with
Mastino della Scala came about.

But the greater number on the Council held other views.
The power of the Scaligeri was not so formidable as was repre-
sented, and already they had made themselves detested of all
their neighbours. The Florentines, from whom they had seized
Lucca ; the Rossi, the banished lords of Parma ; Azzo Visconti
of Milan, whom Mastino had attempted to have poisoned ; the
Gonzaga, from whom he had tried to wrench Mantua ; all of
these would rally round the Republic, already strong in its lord-
ship over Dalmatia, Istria, Candia, Negropont, the best part of
the Morea and other territories. In olden days, Venice had
defied the pride of Eccelino da Romano at Padua ; in olden days
Venetians had fought with success on terra firma. Mercenary
soldiers and foreign generals were no terrors to a state founded
on the affections of the people governed. Above all, urged
the leaders of the war party, Venice must not show fear. The
fleet retaining the possession of the seas, would bring across
them riches and provisions. Confident in her own strength
and in that of her allies, trusting in the justice of her cause,
Venice must declare war.

So the party of the Doge was outvoted and Francesco Dandolo
declared war against Mastino della Scala, amid scenes of popular
enthusiasm. All the men of the Dogado, between twenty to
sixty years old, were summoned to serve their country's need.
They made up the number of forty thousand and one hundred.
Hardly had the bruit of the war-declaration sounded across
Italy, before from every comer of the peninsala, as well as
from countries beyond the Alps, practised men of war and
many exiles flocked to Venice to take arms against the Scali-
geri. In particular, Florence seized the opportunity of pro-
claiming a vendetta against the thief who had stolen Lucca ; and,
obtaining from Venice the promise of the re-possession of that
city, agreed to share the charges of the war. A fitting captain
for the two armies, offered in the valiant and zealous Pietro
de Rossi, who had been chased by the Scaligeri from Parma.

148 THE DOGES OF VENICE

Reputed to be the most accomplished Knight in Italy, the allies
invited him heartily to Venice, where, on the loth of October
1336, in the magnificent basilica and amid a concourse of
frenzied and shouting people, there was confided to him, with
all solemnity, by the hand of the Doge himself, the standard
of St. Mark.

The war developed much along the lines predicted by the
councillors who had called for its declaration. The league
of the Italian rulers was joined by the princes of Bohemia
and Carinthia. Only Visconti of Milan showed himself a
cowardly fighter. De Rossi proved a capable commander.
Mastino della Scala had to engage troops from Bavaria, and
was so hardly pressed that there seemed at one time to be
danger of his losing Verona. Some treachery of Visconti, who
did not wish to see Venice too successful, saved the situation
for della Scala, and, taking heart, he advanced on Mantua,
designing to make sudden assault from thence on the Venetian
position under the walls of Padua. At the last moment,
either his plans went wrong or his nerve failed, for he retired
again upon Verona and sent Marsilio Carrara to Venice to
parley with the Doge.

If a bold fighter, Mastino seems to have been a poor
diplomatist. It is true that Marsilio was an honorary noble
of the Republic, and had relations with the dukedom that
no doubt obtained for him an honourable reception by the
councillors. But Mastino could not have reflected that not only
had his own and his brother's jealousy deprived Marsilio of a
high position in Padua, but that a Carrara must be resentful
of the outrage inflicted on Uberto's honour by Alberto
della Scala. However, Marsilio carried out his mission with
exactness, and made formal demand of the Senate for terms
of peace. He was told that the Scaligeri must restore to
Padua, Treviso and Parma their pristine liberty and cede
Lucca to Florence. This was the official answer for Mastino,
but the true business of Marsilio's visit to Venice was
conducted in quite another manner.

With other ambassadors, he was being received by
Francesco Dandolo in a portico of the palace where the Doge
passed in and out among his guests, exchanging light com-

WATCH-DOGS AND HOUNDS OF WAR 149

pliments of ceremony. " What prize to the man who gives you
Padua ? " whispered Marsilio in Dandolo's ear.

" The Signory of the same," answered the Doge quickly
and quietly, as he turned ta another delegate.

These off-hand words have been described also as being
interchanged at a banquet when the heads of host and guest
were beneath the table for a moment, as each stooped to pick
up a dropped napkin. In any case, there was made in Venice
a verbal compact between Dandolo and Marsilio, that was
ratified in the house of Carrara at Padua, on September 30th,
1337, after the taking of that city by the Venetians. Further,
Marsilio was not allowed to enjoy the lordship of Padua until
he had solemnly promised not to make any alterations in the
original trading and traffic arrangements between Padua
and Venice. Later on, Carrara had to give the added
guarantee that he would aid with all his forces in the
repulsion of any attack on the Republic, whether from land
or sea.

The war came to an end at last with triumph for the
Venetians, to whom was allotted in the final divisions of
territory, Treviso with the estate and castle of Castelbaldo,
which estate was eventually passed on to Uberto da Carrara.
Florence, however, did not obtain Lucca. A treaty of peace
was signed by the plenipotentiaries of all the countries, and
sworn to before the altar of St. Mark, in January 1339, ^^nd
on the 14th of February a gorgeous tournament, witnessed by
the Doge in state, was held on the Piazza to celebrate the
restoration of amity.

When the Venetians entered into the possession of Treviso,
they sent there as Podesta one Marino Faliero, who had
already served the State with dignity and ability in other
parts of the ducal dominion. Long life full of offices and
honours yet lay before him, although he was to come at
last to great dishonour. But his story must not be told until
that of Francesco Dandolo has been finished. Dandolo
died eight months after the holding of the great
tournament. He was buried in Sawia Maria dei Frari, his
monument being transferred later to the cloister of the
Seminario Pairiarcale, where it is still to be seen.

150 THE DOGES OF VENICE

Between the reigns of the third and fourth Doges Dandolo,
there was elected a second Gradenigo (Bartolomeo), who for
the three years that he reigned in Venice proved himself a man
of dignity and sense. In the additions to the ducal Pro-
missione made for him, we find no clues as to his character,
although there were, as was usual, some indications of opin-
ions held about the ways of his predecessor. Bartolomeo
Gradenigo had to swear that he would not respond to the
questions of anyone relating to affairs of state without first
consulting his councillors. It was evident that, whether the
result had proved advantageous or not, there were those
concerned in the government of Venice who did not approve
Dandolo's method of gaining for the Republic the overlord-
ship of Padua. Yet Dandolo knew, what in a much later
time Bismarck announced, that all diplomacy worthy to be
so-called, is accomplished by word of mouth, by half-spoken
phrases and half -acknowledged hints : not by written" docu-
ments. And, despite all Promissione, it is probable that
many intelligent successors of Dandolo, when occasion called,
replied to informal but pertinent questions of ambassadors,
even as he did, without consulting any oracle save that of
their own judgment.

Bartolomeo Gradenigo had been a Procurator of St.
Mark de supra before his final elevation, and it was during his
procuratorship that there occurred the terrible storms and
inundations which, as was said and believed, were only stilled
by the direct intercessions of St. Mark, St. George and St.
Nicholas, who embarked one by one from their respective
shrines on Rialto, San Giorgio, and the Lido, in the boat of
a poor fisherman, who, rowing them round to the Piazza,
received from the Evangelist himself, as he landed, a ring
which the simple boatman took next day to the Procurators
of St. Mark (or the Doge) and thereby proved his story of
the apparitions of the night.

One characteristic may be noted in the not parti-
cularly notable Bartolomeo Gradenigo, that of his mental
balance. He reigned at a time when there was need to
revert to the older policies of Venice to which Francesco
Dandolo had by nature inclined, but which the pressure of

WATCH-DOGS AJ^D HOUNDS OF WAR 151

general opinion had compelled him to abandon. It is to be
understood, therefore, that it was for the good of Venice that
Doge Gradenigo 11 replied to King Edward iii, who sought
the help of a Venetian fleet in his war against Philip of France,
that he grieved over the enmity between two kings which
was a danger to all Christianity, but he could not send galleys
to the assistance of the British, because the Republic had to
take steps to repulse the Turks for the common advantage.

King Edward had also begged the Doge to appeal to the
Genoese, should the Venetians be unable to give him aid. He
had promised also many commercial privileges to Venice, and
invited the two young sons of Gradenigo to visit him in
England, where he offered to have them trained in all knightly
exercise. To the first of these requests the Doge replied
simply that he did not find it convenient to write to the
Genoese ; for the rest, he thanked His Majesty for the con-
cessions to the Venetians and for the courteous expressions
concerning his sons, for which he was grateful.

The short reign of Bartolomeo Gradenigo is memorable
also as that in which the work of building " a new saloon "
wherein " to assemble the Greater Council " was undertaken.
This saloon is the one known to us to-day as the Sala del
Maggior Consiglio, and is a gem of architecture, set boldly
and beautifiiUy in the Gothic Palace begun in the time of
Pietro Gradenigo.

When Bartolomeo died in 1342 there was no doubt in
the minds of either the patricians or the populace as to who
deserved to be his successor. Andrea Dandolo had been
proposed for the Dogeship in 1339, but owing to his youth —
he was then about thirty-two — Gradenigo was elected instead.
Now, at thirty-six, the noble of illustrious name and large
fortune, whose personal virtue was so great and manners so
perfect that he was known as " Courtesy " and " The Count of
Virtue," obtained in each scrutiny a large majority of the votes.
He had been the first of all the yoimg Venetian nobles to take
the degree of doctor at the University of Padua, and for
some time had been a professor of laws there. Thus, all
circumstances of his Ufe and heredity prepared him for the
office of a legislator and fostered the literary abilities that were

152 THE DOGES OF VENICE

exhibited later in many ways, but particularly in his composi-
tion of the annals of his country's glory and the lives of his
country's Doges. Like all the Dandoli, he was a wonderful
combination of analytical and executive parts, and if not
possessed of so grand a character as the great Enrico, of Byzan-
tine fame, he was superior in his culture and his accomplish-
ments to any Doge of his house, perhaps to any who ever
mounted the Venetian throne.

It was his lot to come to office at the time >vhen the
breaking of the Greek dominion was opening a way for the incur-
sion of the rising power of the Ottomans. Without the aid of
the Genoese and Venetian fleets, the Greeks could not defend
themselves against the " Young Turks." Yet, with the long-
held Acre and other jointly occupied towns in Palestine lost
to the Mahommedans, and with the lusty Ottoman armies at the
very gates of Constantinople, the two sea-powers of Italy were
so little alarmed by the true dangers of their time, that they
wasted their energies in rivalries of each other and in covert
attacks on the political unity and mercantile strength of the
Greek Empire. The papal anger against a government that
dared to uphold reUgious tenets and an ecclesiastical hierarchy
not prescribed by Rome, constantly fomented the jealousies of
Venice and Genoa. Schemes of successive Pontiffs tempted
Venice to idle crusading projects of reclamation and conquest,
instead of encouragiag her to form such an alliance as would
assure the defence of all Europe and the greater prosperity of
both Republics. The governments of the West all seemed
blind to the fact that the only bulwark for Christian Europe
was a strong and well-supported Emperor at Byzantium.

After entering into an alliance with the Pope, the King of
Cyprus, the Greek Emperor, the Grand Master of Rhodes, the
King of France and the Dauphin of Vienne, for the purpose of
crusading against the Turks in Palestine, and at the very time
that the Venetian captain Pietro Zeno was being accounted a
martyr because of his death in a church during the defence of
Smyrna, Doge Andrea Dandolo committed the infidelity of
asking the Pope to allow Venice to trade with Mussulmen in
Egypt and the Syrian ports. The special ambassadors to
Avignon for that cause were Marino Faliero and Marco

WATCH-DOGS AND HOUNDS OF WAR 153

Corner. They prevailed so far that, in the following year,
the Pontiff addressed a rescript to the Doge which took into
consideration that Venice was dependent for her daily food on
her sea-trade, and that the Venetians had recently shown great
zeal for the affairs of the Holy Faith, and therefore permitted
the resumption of trade with the Turks, provided there was no
exporting of prohibited articles. These articles were arms,
iron, ship-timber and slaves. Yet it may be that Venice
was not so blind as she appeared, but that, true to her quint-
essential nature, she regarded reclamation of holy soil and
slaughter of the enemies of the Christian Faith as ends of
policy less advantageous to her own prosperity and integrity
than the spread of her trade relationships and the maintenance
of her independence.

So, if we consider Andrea Dandolo as mouthpiece of the
concentrate Venetian thought and as type of the resolved Vene-
tian character of his day, we understand how it was that,
despite the high designs and great hopes with wMch he ascended
the throne, heyet became the AndreaDandolo, kiflamedwith war-
fever, inveterate against a rival sea-power and insensible to all
poetic views about the unification of Italy, that Petrarch found
him, when Doge and Poet met together in Venice in 1353.

Other things besides the pressure of the mercantile am-
bitions and of the national vanities of the patricians who
governed Venice (and the Doge with Venice) had had a part
in chilling the enthusiasm and restraining the generosity in
Dandolo, between the time when he and Petrarch first made
friends at the University of Padua, and the hour when the
Poet arrived at the Ducal Palace eis an Ambassador for the
Archbishop Giovanni Visconti, Lord of Milan and Imperial
Vicar in Italy.

The early part of Dandolo 's reign had seen many triumphs.
The taking of the valuable trade station of Smyrna had been
quickly followed by the repression of a revolt in Zara, and a
defeat, with great slaughter, of the King of Hungary, who
designed to possess himself of a direct route from his dominions,
through Zara, across to Apuglia and on to Naples, where his
brother's widow, the notorious Giovanna, reigned. But in
January 1348 severe shocks of earthquake had shaken down

154 THE DOGES OF VENICE

houses and campanili, dried up canals and brought much loss
and apprehension to the Venetians. After the earthquake
came pestilence. " Black Death " stalked through Italy ;
beginning at Genoa, spreading east and west, killing Laura de
Sade, the love of Petrarch at Avignon, and carrying off three-
fourths of the population of Venice. Among those swept out
of existence by this terrible scourge were fifty families of the
Venetian aristocracy and so many members of the legislative
bodies that new elections had to be held for the Forty, and
the quorum of the Great Council which nunibered about a
thousand members, to be reduced from thirty to twenty.

WhUe this affliction fell on the city, certain disaffected
colonies of the Republic, together with its active enemy Genoa,
seized the occasion to revolt against the Government and attack
its foreign possessions. In 1350 the great Genoese Admiral
Filippo Doria took Negropont from the Venetians, and the
Doge, in retaliation, sought an alliance with the King of Ara-
gon and the Emperor Joannes Cautacugenus of Constantinople,
against Genoa. The Emperor, being already in debt to the
Venetians, to whom he had pawned his crown jewels, could
do no less than make an effort to redeem his securities with
service. It was agreed that his property should be returned
to him as soon as the city of Pera was reclaimed from the
Genoese. In 1351 the contest became fierce, but when the
attack of Pisani, the Venetian Admiral, on Pera failed, the
Emperor abandoned his engagements to Venice, and put himself
at the disposition of Genoa. The Venetians, however, with
the assistance of an Aragonese fleet, gained a signal victory over
the Genoese, at La Lojefa on the Sardinian coast, which
had the result of driving Genoa, at that time a Republic under a
Doge, into the protection of the Lord of Milan. This protec-
tion made it incumbent on the Visconti, so the Archbishop
said, to fight the battles of Genoa against Venice, although they
had previously agreed not to do so. It behoved the Vene-
tians, therefore, to arm themselves for a land conflict by the
hire of condottieri, and to oppose the ambitions of the Lord-
Archbishop to the Roman crown, by forming a league against
him, with the Marquesses of Montferrat and Ferrara and the
Lords of Verona, Padua, Mantua and Faenza. As a final

WATCH-DOGS AND HOUNDS OF WAR 155

check to designs of the Visconti, the King of Bohemia
(King-Elect of the Romans and prospective Emperor) was
invited to be Captain-General of the League, and did indeed
come into Italy, but having obtained his crown in Rome,
marched back to Bohemia, without in any way dealing punish-
ment to the Visconti.

It was just as this league was forming that Petrarch was
sent to Venice with the object of pressing on the Doge some
terms of peace with Genoa, suggested by the Archbishop.
The poet had ahready written to his old friend (March 1351)
lamenting that the stout and obstinate enemy with whom
Dandolo's republic was at war, was of Italian race ; not from
Damascus, Susa, Memphis or Smyrna, but from Genoa — an
enemy, war with whom mUst result in the extinction or
darkening of one of the two eyes of Italy.

It is evident that the poet had confidence that his pleadings
would move the Doge, and it was probably with great hopes of
effecting a peace that he journeyed at last to Venice to have
personal talk with Dandolo. Petrarch's own words tell more
eloquently than can any others, of his disappointment over
the attitude and temper of one whom he spoke of later as
" good and honest, a great lover of his country, and moreover
learned, eloquent and prudent, and courteous and gentle."

" When many words had been wasted," he wrote to
Dandolo himself in the year following his visit, " I returned
as full of sorrow, shame and terror, as I had come full of hope.
To open to reason ears that were stopped and hearts that were
obstinate, was a task beyond my eloquence, as it would have
been" beyond that of Cicero."

Yet while lamenting the prevalence of the war-fever and
the din of arms that had made the hearts of the Doge and
his nobles deaf to wholesome coimsel and just entreaties,
Petrarch had been constrained to admit that no ruler was
better advised than Dandolo ; no people more calm and
dignified than those of Venice. He essayed once more, how-
ever, to expose the horrors of war, especially war between
Italians carried on by hired foreign soldiers. Like wolves and
vultures, these delighted in carnage. Their thirst for blood
and gold was equal. In times of peace they feared and

156 THE DOGES OF VENICE

starved. Was Dandolo going to let all the fair and lovely
part of Italy that lies between the Apennines and Alps become
the prey of these foreign, hungry wolves ? He must not
think that if Italy perished, Venice would be safe.

" Nature has made thee," he urged, " gentle and a lover of
peace, and your people one whose unbounded prosperity rests
not on the foundation of war, but on peace and justice. Be-
ware you do not fall under the condemnation the Psalmist
pronounces on those ' who pondered unrighteousness in their
heart, and stirred up strife all the day long,' or incur the male-
diction, ' Scatter the peoples that delight in war.' If perchance
thou hast let the popular breath drive thee on a dangerous
course, draw back thy foot from the precipice while thou
canst, whilst the armies have not yet engaged, whilst Mars
thunders, but has not yet launched his thunderbolt, whilst
the sweet name of peace can yet be heard amid the bitter
and dreadful threats of war. Seize the last chance, that thou
mayst be called the author of peace in Italy, and band down
to posterity a name already glorious in many ways, with this
glory above the rest. What will thy literary distinctions
advantage thee, thy study in the liberal arts, in which fame
proclaims with truth thy great achievements above all other
rulers of this age, if, having seen what is better, thou pursuest
the worse course ? "

So Petrarch wrote on, beseeching Dandolo to hear and
attend to him. A month later he wrote again, and again
lamented the wounds of their common country, inflicted by
her own sons — the country that knew not how to live at peace,
but that let the ambitions of her princes and the jealousies
and differences of her peoples tempt strangers to meddle in her
affairs and promote internal discords in order that they might
spoil and subjugate the land. What advantages, he asked the
Doge, do you expect to gain from your victory ? A depressed
exchequer and great losses in lives will be the prices you will
pay. Beautiful and blessed is peace. By peace, trades and
industries flourish and populations become civilized. It
was in the power of the Doge to give this blessing to his own
Republic, as well as to all Italy, if he would only put away
anger and hold out his hand fraternally to Liguria. In con-
clusion, Petrarch conjured the Doge, by the love he had
always borne for virtue, by his affection for his country, and

WATCH-DOGS AND HOUNDS OF WAR 157

by his own glory, in gaining which he would prove himself
worthy to be compared to Trajan, to give to Italy peace.

The reply of Dandolo was almost pathetic in its passionate
resentment of Petrarch's suggestion that a popular war-breath
had blown him aside from the path of wisdom and justice.
All the sensitiveness and all the tenacity of the man are shown
in the Doge's epistle. Rightly or wrongly, Dandolo believed
with his counsellors, that the aim of Visconti and the Genoese
in trying for a truce was to obtain time to build a larger fleet
and generally prepare themselves for further depredations on
Venetian trade and for extended conquests of Italian territory.
Genoa as a dependency of MUan was a more formidable foe
than had ever been Genoa alone, and the Doge could not
have faith in the disinterestedness and benevolence of the
Visconti.

His words to Petrarch at this time were that he had always
loved peace and was not one who would wiUingly disturb it.
He wished nothing for his enemies, if not the quiet of Italy,
and desired not to boast after victory, well knowing the glory
that redounded to a Prince who used moderation (mercy)
after triumph. He marvelled therefore that Petrarch attri-
buted to him other thoughts, after the friendly and benevolent
response given to him and the other ambassa,dors when they
came ; and after the embassy sent in all good faith to the
High Pontiff in order to arrive at an accommodation with all
parties. He had devoted all his forces to the object of avoid-
ing the very evils which his correspondent had depicted so
truthfully and strikingly. The poet would do better to direct
his exhortations to those whose avidity had been the cause of
so much commotion. " As for us," Dandolo concluded,
" although human thoughts vary with varying times, we shall
be always, as we have ever been, disposed for any peace that
will be glorious and honourable for our country." " For
such a peace," he added, " we and all our citizens are ready
to give not only gold and silver, but our lives and all we hold
most dear."

That the Genoese had not neglected the construction and
fitting out of new vessels, while Visconti parleyed with Venice,
was soon shown by the appearance of a new fleet under Doria

158 THE DOGES OF VENICE

in the Adriatic. Lesina and Curzola on the Dalmatian coast
were sacked and burned, and later the city of Parenzo in
Istria was devastated. Then was alarm indeed in Venice, but
no confusion. One, Paolo Loredan, was appointed Captain-
General for the city, and under him served twelve patricians
who each led thirty men. An iron chain was stretched across
the Lido port, and " the Doge himself, in armour, contrary
to his custom, took part " in the active defence of his capital.
He presented a vaHant front, but a sudden dise,ase, contracted,
so it was said at the time, by grief, laid hold of him, and he
died within three weeks from the taking of Parenzo.

He was happy, said a chronicler, in that he did not live
to grieve ever the worse disaster of Porto Lungo, when
Paganino Doria routed the Venetians under Nicolo Querini
" without a struggle, and overcame them without a victory."
It appeared that the new ships of the Genoese were light and
swift ; such as were useful indeed for coast attacks and battles
in shallow waters. The late contests had revealed to one
" eye of Italy," though the other had not so early perceived it,
that these handy craft were the kind most needed for contests
in the Adriatic and the Grecian Archipelago. The powerful
old ships of the Venetians could not follow the enemy into all
coves and streams.

So Andrea Dandolo passed on his way, his great popularity
being slightly lessened at the time of his death by the repute
he had won in some quarters of being too tenacious in his
struggle with the Visconti. Yet his name and his fame lived,
and even those he had resisted, mourned him.

" I knew him to be a good man, though more ardent in the
pursuit of war than was consistent with his nature and
character," was a further account of him by Petrarch. " I
did not spare him in his lifetime; he bore my reproaches
patiently, but, elated by recent victory, he rejected my
counsel." Then, thinking of Porto Lungo and swayed by a
natural disposition to crow, the resisted pleader added : " Death
was kind to him in sparing him the sight of his country's
bitter sorrow, and the still more cutting letters I would have
sent him."

CHAPTER X

TRAGEDY IN THE PALACE AND A DOGE ON
HORSEBACK

A.D. 1354 TO 1365

THE corrections of the Oath prepared for the Doge to
succeed Andrea Dandolo included promises not to
receive any retximed ambassadors or delegates of the
Republic, except in the presence of four councillors and two
chiefs of the Quarantia. There were also other restrictions
on what remained of ducal autonomy, and all these restraints
on the freedom and supervisions of the actions of the Venetian
Doge should be remembered by those who would- read aright
the piteous tale of Marino Faliero.

The Doge whom Byron made the hero of a tragedy, and
around whose name circles so much of the glamour and
mystery of Venetian story, was, at the time of his election,
at Avignon. He had gone thither on the embassy for peace,
to which Andrea Dandolo referred in his letter to Petrarch.
It was not the first time he had been an Ambassador for
Venice at the papal court ; neither was it the highest office
he had ever held. He was seventy-six years of age, and
from early manhood had been appointed to one responsible
post after another. Nearly forty years before, in 1315, he
had been a member of the newly formed Council of Ten,
and one of the two of that body instructed to bring about
the death of Bajamonte Tiepolo. From acting as Podesta
of Padua, of Treviso and of Serravalle — where he became
Count of Vahnarena in the Venetian Alps — he passed on
to magistracies in Dalmatia and other colonies, and was
eventually knighted by the Emperor Charles iv in his castle

"59

i6b THE DOGES OF VENICE

at Vienna in 1353. To Vienna Faliero went with the same
Marco Corner who had been his companion at Avignon in
1345. The object of the later joint mission was a reference
to the new Emperor of the dispute between the King of
Hungary and the RepubUc of Venice as to the right of owner-
ship of Dalmatia. Charles decided that Venice should keep
Dalmatia and pay a money contribution to King Louis.

Yet, for aU the glories of a career in which he came at
last to the highest honour of the State, there was a time when
some unexplained cancellings of preferment had taken place.
When the expedition for the siege"" of Zara was setting out,
in the time of the late Dandolo, proposals for the appoint-
ment of Faliero as Captain-General of both fleet and army
were made and he was actually designated Captain
of the Fleet. But the legality of a dual command being
questioned by the Avogadori — the official exponents of the
laws and the advisers of the Councils — he was not given a
command at all. He appears, however, to have been sent
to Zara as a Proveditor, or government representative to
accompany the army. He was therefore not the active
recoverer of Zara, as Byron, building up his hero from un-
compared scraps of history and legend, styled him.

It may be that the vacillations about his command were
due to some doubts of his loyalty to the Republic. These
doubts had certainly not existed at the time that he was
entrusted with pursuit of the traitor Tiepolo, and if they
ever arose, were forgotten at the hour of his election. Yet
there are evidences in his career — notably the fact of his
acquisition of the feudal title and office of Count — that he
was a man of strong personal ambition and vanity. Further,
he had seen something of the power of rulers who followed
their own designs by the consent of the general public and
were not in servitude to bands of jealous experts in govern-
ment or to hosts of carping officers of state.

However that was, no exertions were spared to give Doge
Marino Faliero an honourable welcome to his Dogado. A
safe conduct from Avignon was obtained by the Councillors
and the Chiefs of the Forty, from the aged Archbishop of
Milan, who, as Lord-Paramount and Protector of Genoa, was

TRAGEDY IN THE PALACE i6i

still at war with Venice. At Verona, the new Doge was met
by twelve Venetian nobles, who paid him all honour, and
attended him down the Adige by boat to Chioggia, where
the Bucintoro -lay. It was the 5th October 1534, and an
autumn fog covered the lagoons so thickly that it was judged
dangerous to proceed in the heavy vessel of state. So the
Doge and his following embarked in piatie with intention
of making the riva by the Ponte della Paglia. The barks
missed the landing-place, and touched shore between the
two columns on the Piazzetta. It was an omen of sinister
fate, recalled later, if not recognized at the time, that the
one Doge executed as a traitor to the State, landed, on the
eve of his proclamation, at a place where gamblers met to
challenge luck. Darker presage still, it was also the place
where heads of malefactors were exposed after decapitation.

And now for the story of Marino Faliero's conspiracy
against the Venetian government, which was indeed the chief
event of his reign.

Le vieux doge avait une jolie femme que ne lui etait pas
fidele. That is a French version of the story, which contains,
in embryo, the whole plot as it is generally retailed. The
second wife of Marino Faliero, who was Lodovica Gradenigo,
of the family of the great Doge, if not, as has been claimed,
his granddaughter, may have been a handsome woman enough.
She was, however, over forty years of age at the time of her
husband's reign, and was probably of rather weak intellect
and character. Probably too, she entered with zest into
social amusements, and permitted to her ladies-in-waiting
frolics and diversion which the tragic Doge very rightly
considered indecorous. Faliero was never one to brook the
least derogation of his dignity, or the slightest want of respect
for his arrangements. On one occasion, while Podesta at
Treviso, he boxed the ears of a bishop who kept him waiting
for a religious ceremony. No wonder, therefore, that at a
grand entertainment in the Ducal Palace which wound up
the Holy Thursday festival of bull-baiting and pig-sticking
on the Piazza, the Doge flew into a rage at the sight of a
spark of nobUity offering familiarity to a lady of the Dogaressa's
suite. Then and there Faliero had the offender turned out
II

i62 THE DOGES OF VENICE

of the palace, and by the act set many idle tongues wagging

and some impudent spirits aflame. The young blood, upon

whom fell the sentence of the Doge's wrath, had not been

alone that night in his free conduct and gay ways. It had

become a fashion among the striplings of the aristocracy to

go about in swaggering bands, insulting slaves and women of

all ranks with remarks and gestures supposed to betoken class

superiority to ordinary decencies. Even in churches, signs

of horrid suggestion were made by these young savages.

The impudence of the rufflers took the form also of posting

offensive placards {polUzini) and of singing outrageous songs,

in conspicuous parts of public buildings. A band of these

flippant desperadoes attended the Doge's baU on that Holy

Thursday night, and were encouraged, rather than repressed,

by at least one foolish woman whose loss of dignity reflected

on the state and reputation of the Dogaressa. That this

lady was young and a faithless wife, may be better believed

than that Lodovica Faliero was either youthful or immoral.

Indeed, the light of modem research makes it clear that the

woman of folly was no other than Cristina Faliero {nee

Contarini), the young wife of the Doge's nephew, another

Marino Faliero ; the same nephew described in the Doge's

will as his diletto nepoie. But the insolence to Cristina that

night, though disturbing enough to ducal dignity, was a light

thing compared to the deUberate outrage offered to the Doge

on the following day. For Michele Steno, in his fierce

resentment for his dismissal from the ball, pinned on to the

ducal chair of state and caused to be dropped in the private

apartments of the Doge, placards with the ornamentation of

a pair of horns, on which were written the abominable lines —

Marin Falier, de la bella mugier,
I altri la gode, e lu la mantien.^

The outrageous couplet has been dubbed apocryphal by some
thoughtful historians. It was certainly never copied into any
of&cial accounts of the Faliero conspiracy that have been
preserved. But then there are decided gaps in the records of
this lurid reign. The discovery of the will of the widowed

* " Maxino Faliero, with the beautiful wife,

Others delight in her, while he — ^he maintains her."j

TRAGEDY IN THE PALACE 163

Dogaressa, and of other documents that fix her age and sub-
sequent history, has disproved the tale that she was young
and faithless. But the facts that the tradition of the young
and faithless wife was so firmly established ; that the Doge's
nephew of his own name had a young wife ; that this wife's
maiden name was Contarini ; that some chronicles state that
the Doge's second wife was a Contarini, whereas it is now
known positively that she was a Gradenigo and his nephew's
wife a Contarini ; that the official notes of the punishment of
Michele Steno £ind others, for " foul and slanderous words "
written on the camino of the Doge, make no mention of the
Doge's wife, but do declare that the words were in vitu-
perium domini duds et ejus nepotis ; and, moreover, that there are
many examples in history which show that in the days of Faliero,
nepote was used indifferently for niece or nephew, and applied
equally to a nephew's wife ; all these facts, it must be owned,
make up a strong body of proof that the woman satirized
was Cristina (Contarini) Faliero, and the husband of the horns,
the younger Marino. In any case, the insult seems to us now
so abominably gross, that it might well have received severe
punishment in days of cruel penalties and ruthless retaliations
in law and custom. But they were days also of much licence.
Spades were called spades, and a man who was also a noble, was
not ashamed to revenge himself for an indignity, not only on an
old man, his Sovereign, but on a young wife who had broken
vows, for his sake. Michele Steno was already a Chief of the
Forty, and he lived to be a greatly respected Doge. It was
felt by the wise men of Venice that his delinquency counted
for little more than an ebullition of young blood in a man of
promise, and need not be severely punished. So a third and,
in his own eyes, a superlative insult, was offered to the Doge,
by the condemnation of Michele Steno and the other adoles-
centali nobiles, who had behaved themselves objectionably at
the ball, to imprisonment for one month and the payment of
a small fine to the Republic.

It is not to be thought that Marino Faliero accepted the
elective office of supreme magistrate of his country with the
dehberate intention of subverting the laws and raising himself
to the position of an autocratic Monarch. Neverthless, he had

i64 THE DOGES OF VENICE

grand ideas of his own dignity, and there was ever less in him
of the trained Venetian inclination towards law-worship than
of the more primitive Italian instinct for tyranny. The cold
and calculating manner in which Venetian magistrates adminis-
tered the law was in itself an offence to him, and he could
not hold, as an almost contemporary historian of his fate did,
that " the grave wisdom of a Doge was bound to disregard
the levity of youth and acquiesce in the decision of the govern-
ment of his city." On the contrary, he felt that a Doge was no
Doge who could not insist on the punishment of an insult to his
state, and who had to abide by decisions of cold lookers-on at
the contumely inflicted on him, andto submit to judgments of
councils of men, jealous, every one of them, of any immunity
or prerogative that might possibly be imputed to his office,
or bestowed upon him personally.

There were others in Venice who writhed under treatment
by individuals among the nobles, if not, as Faliero did, under
the decisions of the patricians as a body. One of these,
Gisello, the Ammiraglio or Foreman-Manager of the workmen
at the Arsenal, an official of much popularity, had been struck
in the mouth and wounded with a great ring, by Marco Barbaro,
a high-born member of the Great Council. Another person
of plebeian condition, Bertuccio Isarello, a master of a ship,
had also had to take blows in the course of a dispute with a
great personage (Giovanni Dandolo) in the office of armaments
on the ground-floor of the Ducal Palace. On account of these
events, Gisello obtained access to the Doge and begged his
assistance in suppressing such acts of violence. Gisello com-
plained that the pride of the Councillors was joined to so niuch
self-will that they meddled with things they had no under-
standing of, and used harsh methods of enforcing their ideas.
The complaint of Bertuccio Isarello was even more contemptu-
ous, though veiled with a certain grace. He said that it had
become necessary to put a bound to so much noble insolence,
otherwise the poor people would be considered fair game for
eveyy kind of maltreatment. The Doge was sympathetic with
the views of both men, but remarked bitterly that the preponder-
ance of the power of the nobility would keep matters always
the same. Even he, the Doge, could not obtain justice, as

TRAGEDY IN THE PALACE 165

the case of Michele Steno had proved. Gisello took courage
at this, and muttered between his teeth, " But malignant
beasts may be tied up, and, if not tied up, knocked on the
head."

Then FaUero knew with what kind of man he had to do.
He knew also that Gisello counted the opportunity ripe for the
execution of his designs. There was further introduced to
the ducal presence, Filippo Calendario, who was certainly a
sculptor or lapidary, though not perhaps the architect of the
reconstructions then going on in the Ducal Palace, as has been
surmised. Another Faliero and a nephew of the Doge was also
found to be a conspirator, or in the disposition to be made
one. So a plot was formed to overturn the rule of the Great
Council, the Forty and the Ten, and to acclaim Marino
Faliero the Prince of Venice. Yet only a few of the conspira-
tors guessed that the Doge himself had an active part in their
plot, and to disarm all suspicions, Faliero publicly repri-
manded GiseUo for a sudden outburst on the Piazza, when he
had inveighed against his enemy Barbaro. A further scheme
to popularize the step about to be taken, and to bring into
disrepute the great families of Venice, was also acted upon.
Bands of plebeian youths, partly in mockery of the ways of
patrician gallants, terrorized the city at night, by charging
through the streets, shouting out insults to women of their
own class, and calling each other by honoured and aristocratic
names. Some of these were arrested on the 8th of April,
and quiet returning with their detention, it was thought that
all danger from rioting and popular ferment had been averted.

But on Thursday, 15th April, the uproar started again.
The leaders of the conspiracy awaited with their followers,
each in his own place, for the signal to begin the fight.
The appointed sign was the ringing of the Campana and
the passing from mouth to mouth of the word that the
Genoese fleet was in the gulf and threatening to enter the port.
At this word, it was well known, all the nobles — patriotic to a
man — would come running to the Piazza, where they were to
be strangled one by one, amid cries of Long live Prince Faliero I

There was, however, one tradesman-conspirator — Bel-
trame, a furrier — who wished to save a generous patron,

i66 THE DOGES OF VENICE

named Nicolo Lioni, and who went to him on the night of the
14th of April to pass him a hint. Lioni repaired instantly to
the Doge, who had been in no way implicated by Beltrame's
half -confession. Faliero affected to treat the affair as a joke,
and Lioni, a little chagrined and far from satisfied, fetched two
Councillors — Giovanni Gradenigo and Marco Corner — who
both became Doges later. These statesmen further questioned
the now thoroughly frightened Beltrame. Simultaneously,
revelations were made by another traitor of weak knees to two
members of the family of Contarini. Information was given
secretly to the Captains of the Ten, by whom the Privy Council,
the Avogadori, the Forty, the Signori di notte and all the
other guardians and executants of the law, saving only the
two called Faliero, uncle and nephew, were summoned to a
meeting of urgency.

After some deliberation, the immediate arrest of Calendario
was ordered. Upon the result of his examination, many other
arrests, including that of the Doge, were carried out about
the time fixed for the popular rising and the proclamation of
the new Prince. Then instead of cries of Viva il principe
Faliero being raised as the conspirators stabbed defenceless
nobles with knives, there were only mutterings and an ominous
silence from the crowd. Such revolutionaries as ventured on
to the Piazza found there the doughty Marco Comer in com-
mand of a large force of armed citizens, who were later re-
inforced by fighting-men from Chioggia.

Justice was swiftly executed. The first hints of informa-
tion of the plot had been given on the evening of the 14th of
April. On the morning of the i8th, Messer Marino Faliero,
Doge, was beheaded within the courtyard of his palace, at the
top of the stone steps, later replaced by the magnificent Scala
dei Giganti. It wels the spot from which he and some earlier
Doges had sworn to the ducal Promissione, and where many
later rulers of Venice were crowned. The ceremonial of
the execution was both stately and pathetic. It cannot be
better described than in the exact words of one of the most
critical of the English historians of Venice :^ —

" The Doge was ushered from his own apartments to the

^ Mr. F. C. Hodgson.

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TRAGEDY IN THE PALACE 167

hall of the Great Council, where the body that judged him, led
by Giovanni Mocenigo, the senior of the six councillors, met
him, and led the way to the staircase that descended from the hall
to the gallery over the courtyard. At the head of this staircase
the ducal biretta was taken off with the other insignia of his
office, and in a plain round cap and a black close-fitting robe he
was led down the stairs and along the gallery to the platform
at the head of the next staircase that led from the gallery down
into the courtyard. He spoke a few words to the assembled
people, asking their pardon and acknowledging the justice of
his punishment, and then his head was struck off with a single
blow. The doors of the palace were kept shut during the
execution, but when the headsman had come out on to the
loggia and shown his blood-stained sword to the people outside,
the doors were thrown open, and the people rushed in to see
the punishment that had been inflicted on treason. His body
and the severed head were laid on a mat in the Sala del Piovega,
and next morning were sent in a chest to Santi Giovanni e
Paolo, where they were buried at the back of the monastery by
the side of the entry to the cloister. There they were found
early in the last century, the head lying between the knees, in a
chapel of the Scuola di San Marco."

The ceremony was not quite so accurately, but certainly
more pictmresquely described at the time, by one who had not
been present at it, but who knew Venice and the Venetians
well. " In a most famous place," wrote Petrarch, "... to
which his forerunners had often brought home in triumphal
procession the gladdest honours, he, dragged in servile fashion
by a concourse of people, and stripped of the insignia of a Doge,
fell down a headless corpse, and stained with his blood the
doors of the church, the entrance of his palace, and the marble
stairs often made glorious by solemn feasts or the spoils of
enemies." And Petrarch proceeded : " As regards the unhappy
man, I am both compassionate and indignant ; honoured as he
was, I know not what he could have desired at the end of a long
life. His misfortune is aggravated by the fact that, according
to the tradition of public judgment, he will be held to have been
not only miserable but mad, and to have for so many years
obtained by vain acts an undeserved reputation for wisdom.

i68 THE DOGES OF VENICE

Those who are for a time Doges, I would warn to study the
mirror set before their eyes, that they may see in it that they
are leaders not lords, nay, not even leaders, but honoured
servants of the State."

It was indeed as Petrarch said. At least one early his-
torian of the period explains the defection of Faliero by the
statement that he was obsessed by devils.

And the aristocrats of Venice — those at least who were not
immediate candidates for the Dogeship — ^became more than
ever determined that their supreme officer should be no longer
their leader, but only their servant, upon whom they deigned
to heap honours. Empty honours Faliero thought them,
since they exposed their wearer to envious insult and prevented
him from defending his reputation. Even among the aristocrats,
Faliero had not been alone in deeming the prescriptions of the
oligarchy too stringent and oppressive to be borne. The assist-
ants of this Doge in his frenzied struggle against the patrician
domination had been recruited mainly from the plebeian orders,
but there were in various parts of the Venetian Empire aristo-
crats and of&cers who held that his views were just, and who
believed that a man in any station has a right to such authority
as he is capable of exercising. But the personal aggravations
of Faliero and his impulsive temperament — if no worse faults
in him — prevented any proper organization of his revolution,
and left many supporters of his political views without oppor-
tunity of showing their adherence either to him or to his
theories of government.

The two next Doges who were elected in Venice, though
men of parts and character, had the true view of themselves
as servants and not leaders of the State.

Giovanni Gradenigo, who had been one of the Councillors
called by Lioni to unravel the thread of conspiracy disclosed by
Beltrame, was elected on 21st April ifdB^- This Gradenigo was
second-cousin of the late Doge's wife, and grandson of Doge
Giovanni Dandolo the Uncouth, whom he resembled in his
slouching gait and clumsy manners. He was seventy years
old at the time of his election, and had an enormous nose
which got him the nickname of Nasone. His first task — a
most grateful one to Doge and people alike — was the making

TRAGEDY IN THE PALACE 169

of peace with Genoa and the Lords of Milan. But war came
soon in another quarter.

The King of Hungary, more intent than ever upon possess-
ing Dalmatia, had come to the conclusion that that country
could only be fought for on the soil of Italy. So he marched
an army of overwhelming numbers through Friuli and, sacking
towns of importance as he went along, encamped at last
before the walls of Treviso.

It was at this time that Francesco Carrara, a collateral,
not a direct descendant of Anna Carrara, Doge Pietro
Gradenigo's daughter, first reared head as an enemy of Venice,
and fully entered upon his career of Italian tyrant on the
approved pattern of that romance which is history selected
and intensified, to make the blood of readers curdle.

Among other manoeuvres, Francesco replied to the request
of the Venetians to come to their aid, that it was his desire to
continue in the good graces of the Doge, and although the
coming of the King of Hungary with so great an army had
roused his worst apprehensions, he trusted, nevertheless, to
do nothing inconvenient. Then he made overtures to the
Hungarians for an alliance, and, even as he did sp, sent to
Venice terms so exorbitant as the price of his support of his
family's old ally and protector, that they could but be refused.
But before the strife became active between Venice and
Padua, Doge Giovanni Gradenigo died. " He was a man of
perfect cognition of the laws, which he desired to have strictly
observed," was the approving comment on him of a Venetian.

Giovanni Delfino, who then succeeded, was one of three
Proveditori in Treviso sent there to assist the Podesta in the
defence of the city against the Hungarians. A polite mission
was dispatched to King Louis in his camp, to ask for a safe-
conduct for the Doge-elect. It is said that the unexpected
courtesy of the messengers of the Republic surprised the
Monarch into granting their demand. Delfino, apprised of
his election, determined, however, to take no chances. He
rode out of the besieged city for a sortie which he headed ;
then cut his way to Mestre, where the customary deputation
of twelve nobles met him. These, with his Trevisan train of
one hundred horsemen and two hundred foot-soldiers, brought

170 THE DOGES OF VENICE

him safely to Venice, where he made his solemn entry, pre-
sumably in the Bucintoro, on 25th August 1356. The popular
applause, always bestowed upon personal courage, greeted
him in the capital.

Doge Delfino was indeed of a bold and soldierlike nature,
and in the deliberations concerning the prosecution of the
war with Hungary was on the side of the fighters. This was,
perhaps, what might have been expected, considering that
the loss of Dalmatia must deprive the Head of the Venetian
State of the titles of Doge of Dalmatia and Croatia. Venice
clung to these designations as she still clung to the name of
Lord of one-half and a quarter of the Roman Empire, although
the numerous divisions and sub-divisions of territory in
eastern Europe, and the increase in the number of colonizing
nations, since the time of Enrico Dandolo, had left her
with only the name of dominion over provinces which she
had never really governed except by her influence in some
of their chief centres. This vague influence, even when
allied to a commercial administration in the ports of the
country, could not in the fourteenth, as it had in the twelfth
century, justify titles that betokened a complete subjugation
of the lands. But in Dalmatia the rule of the Venetians,
although finishing where it began, at the seaboard, had not
been vague. They had exercised there a true authority,
both political and commercial, and it was hard to give this up.
It w£is hard also to surrender the acres of teeming population,
whence hardy sea-dogs were drawn to man Venetian fleets,
and to forfeit miles of forests, where wood was cut to make
Venetian ships.

All the arguments of those of the war -party who
maintained that nothing but the disgrace of the cotmtry
was to be gained by a peace, and who believed that by putting
on a brave front their enemies would be bluffed into a fright
of reserves of force, could not prevail against the advices of
prudent ones of the Councils. These held that the expenses
of the conflict, which had now lasted for two years, were too
great, and that the forces of the Republic had better be
employed, before it was too late, in defending Venice itself,
and not in further fighting for foreign dominions. It was at

TRAGEDY IN THE PALACE 171

last decided to accept the terms of peace proposed, which
included renunciation of Dalmatia with all rights and titles
appertaining to it, and the leaving of all partisans of the
King of Hungary, in particular the Patriarch of Aquileia and
Francesco Carrara, free from molestation. On the side of
the Hungarians, it was agreed to surrender to the Venetians
all the parts of the Trevisan country that had been occupied
by their troops, together with Ceneda and Istria ; not to aid
pirates in the Adriatic ; and to guarantee to Venice security
and liberty of commerce in Dalmatian ports. It was further
promised by both parties that should discussions arise
concerning any infringements of the treaty, they should be
referred to the Pope.

Innocent vi now held court at Avignon. He had long
wished to bring about the cessation of wars between Christian
nations, and to join Venice with the King of Cyprus and the
Knights of Rhodes in yet another Crusade. His advices and
entreaties had no doubt largely influenced the Venetians
to make an end of fighting. It was appropriate, therefore,
that he should be appointed arbitrator in case of further
dispute.

The whole history of the Venetian resistance of Hungary
at this time, shows how much the authority of the Doge in
Council had been reduced. Delfino's fiery demand for war
was only a voice among many, and with ^the many he bowed
to the ultimate decision of the majority.

Stronger marks of the absence of the self-confidence and
hauteur, which generally marks a state under monarchical
government, were shown in another negotiation of Delfino's
reign. This was the sudden and, as it seems from the accounts,
the quite inconsequent decision of the Venetians to seek
from the hands of the Emperor — Charles iv — confirmation
of the rights of the Republic to the lordship of the Trevisan
March. The treaties with the Archbishop Visconti, as
Imperial Vicar, and with King Louis, were not deemed
sufficient. For the moment, the " climbing down " policy
that dictated the peace resulted in the lessening of the
trust of the Republic in the strength of its own institutions
and the virility of its own subjects. The mistake was

172 THE DOGES OF VENICE

made of asking a title of a Monarch who had never intimated
his behef he had it to confer. There had been a long interval
since anything like homage had been rendered by free Venice
to an Imperial name. But the government that had held
itself in the time of the Emperor Henry vii a quintessence,
and proclaimed itself neither of the sea nor of the land, now,
under the smart of its humiliation by Hungary and Padua,
suddenly believed itself too proud to accept dominion of new
ptovinces, except at the hand of the highest over-lord among
the rulers of Europe.

The three ambassadors sent to obtain the Imperial grant
were Lorenzo Celsi, a man of a truly haughty demeanour
and grand air, who yet could practise the art of patience,
Marco Corner and Giovanni Gradenigo. The pretensions of the
Emperor, as might have been expected by those whose injudici-
ous request excited in him excessive ideas of his own powers,
were so great that Corner and Gradenigo had to be recalled to
Venice. Celsi, probably at his own request, remained to see
what he and time could do to move the benevolence of Charles.
It would have been better for Comer and his companion, had
they not so soon departed. Passing through the territory of
the Duke of Austria, they were imprisoned in the castle of the
Seneschals of Osterwitz, who were vassals of the King of
Hungary. Here they remained for fully a year. The news of
their detention, in defiance of all the laws of national courtesy,
disturbed the Venetians not a little. Even more disturbed
was the Emperor Charles. It was represented to the Duke
of Austria that the obligation was on him to effect the release
of the captives.

The Emperor, probably at the suggestion of Celsi, reminded
the Austrian prince that Venice had always been a good friend
to Germany. In the course of the negotiations Charles seems
to have become more generally gracious to the Republic, and
to have provided a special escort for Lorenzo Celsi when he at
last left the Court.

Whatever were the actual benefits obtained of the Emperor
by Celsi, the Republic considered him a servant to be rewarded.
He was made Captain of the Gulf — an office of charge and
dignity — and dispatched with some commission to Candia.

TRAGEDY IN THE PALACE 173

He was still on this island at the time of the death of Doge
Giovanni Delfino.

When the electors met to choose the new Doge, they had
many names before them ; among them Marco Comer, still a
prisoner at Osterwitz, and Andrea Contarini, a Procurator of
St. Mark, who may then have been actually offered the biretta,
since in the course of his life he refused it three times.
Although absolute secrecy concerning their deliberations was
enjoined by law, it is possible that the difficulty of obtaining
sufficient votes for a nomination became known. In any
case, partizans of Lorenzo Celsi, who was not a member of the
highest nobility though he had served his coimtry in the
manner of a noble, circulated the report that the Captain of
the Gulf was returning from Candia with the prize of a flotilla
of Genoese corsairs. This decided a sufficient number of the
electors to vote for the hero of the hour, and when, a little
later, the news was foimd to be false, it was reflected that
Celsi had done other good services to the State, so his election
was adhered to.

The Republic had again a Doge who had no idea of fettering
his own volition with laws and constitutions, but who, never-
theless, meant to do his utmost to make Venetians and their
leader respected. He was a bold man to take his own course
so near to the time when a Doge had lost his head because of
his contempt for rules and provisions of government. But
Lorenzo Celsi was guiltless of any treasonable designs. He
simply had the instinct to move freely and to exercise his
■authority, and he followed his instinct fearlessly. According
to some critics, he was both arrogant and vain. Yet his
love of state and consequence just escaped being vanity.
His high-handed exercise of such prerogatives as were left to
his ofi&ce was not without worthy design.

It is curious that the first, if not the only Venetian who
sought in his lifetime to deprive Celsi of a privilege, was his
own father. This one — Marco Celsi — had an objection to
bow before his son, and refused to do him pubhc reverence.
The difficulty was surmounted by Doge Lorenzo, in a way that
showed at once his care for the dignities of his state and his
consideration of natural human feehng. To the jewels already

174 THE DOGES OF VENICE

adorning the ducal biretta he added in front a crucifix, to
which the old man could but incline with respect and devotion
when he met his son in his habiliments of office.

A lover of horses and falconry, Doge Celsi was celebrated
also for his collections of stuffed and embalmed birds. He was
a little scientific in his tastes, and his passion for sport was not
gratified to an extent to interfere with public business. Of his
talents as a horseman, he made full use for the increase of
ducal dignity in the head of a State that had now strong
military pretensions. He desired to encourage horsemanship.
It would be a common remark in his time that much of the
advantage of the Hungarians in their conflicts with Itahans
came from their superiority in mounted troops. The Hun-
garians then, as now, were prominent among nations for their
success in horse-breeding and their delight in riding.

For some time past the horse had been considerably used
in Venice, and the whole of the ground-floor of the palace
that fronted on the Piazzetta was given up to stables. Not
only for the Doge and his attendants were horses kept, but
" six beautiful coursers " were maintained for the use of any-
one who had done conspicuous service to the State.

Perhaps the imposing appearance of Giovanni Delfino's
approach to Venice with his escort of cavalry may have
suggested to Celsi that by riding to St. Mark's from a riva
distant from that of the Schiavoni, he would create a grander
impression when he made his state entry, than by coming in the
old way to the Piazzetta on the Bucintoro. It was opportunity
also to display his fine figure and regal air from the saddle.
His stud of horses at the palace came to be remarkable. We
may imagine that he had not returned from Candia without
bringing some animals of Arab stock for the ducal stables.
Occasions for further showing off of his horsemanship were
many in his reign. He had not long taken his oath when
it became known in Venice that the Duke of Austria was
approaching the lagoons with a large retinue. At first
the idea spread that he was coming to give battle, but an
ambassador sent to meet him at Treviso returned with the
news that his visit was one of compliment, and that with his
train of thirty cavalieri and two hundred nobles, he had

TRAGEDY IN THE PALACE 175

brought also the long-imprisoned Venetians, Marco Corner and
Giovanni Gradenigo.

Then was great preparation made for an honourable
reception of the Austrian. Splendidly decorated barges were
sent to convey him and his suite from Treviso, by the river
SUe, to the lagoon where, at San Giacomo di Paludo, the Doge
with a number of the Venetian nobility awaited him in the
Bucintoro. In the days that followed there was constantly
to be seen in Venice the sight of two great princes riding
side by side ; going hither and thither to view places of
interest and to inspect institutions of governmental or
ecclesiastical foundation.

After the Duke of Austria came Pietro Lusignano, King
of Cyprus, who was treated equally well. This monarch
was on the way to France to rouse a crusade against the
Turks, in which he hoped to gain also the concurrence of
Edward of England and of some of the princes of Germany.

The principal event of Celsi's reign was the war in Candia.
Revolting in the latter part of 1361, it was June 1364 before
quiet was restored there, and fStes were held in Venice to
celebrate the submission of the island. The Doge took no
active part in the war, but his knowledge of the situation in
Candia from personal observation of it, must have been of
use to the Republic. He was a man who got his way even
in assemblies of trained speakers. One cannot doubt that it
was more upon his suggestion than from the spontaneous
wish of the patricians in general, that the Republic intervened
to break off a projected marriage between the daughter of
the Duke of the Archipelago and a brother of the Archbishop
of Patrasso, for whom was substituted as bridegroom for the
Grecian princess the son of Doge Celsi himself.

Driven by the plague from the home he had made for
himself in Padua, Petrarch came again in Celsi's reign to
a city which had not only the advantage of being blown across
by sea winds, but which possessed the best sanitary adminis-
tration of the time. His intention in establishing himself in
the house with the two towers on the Riva dei Schiavoni
was only to be quiet there. But the sight of the shipping
from his windows, and the invitations of the Doge, tempted

176 THE DOGES OF VENICE

him to some social studies he had not thought to prosecute.
His letters describing the coming of the news of the victory
in Crete of the Veronese condottier Dal Verme, and the Tourna-
ment held to celebrate the subjection of Candia, are incident
to the story of Lorenzo Celsi, as the following sentences show : —

" I was standing at my window, looking at the expanse
of sea that stretches from before me . . . when behold of
a sudden one of these long ships they call galleys, garlanded
with green boughs, draws near, and, being rowed at fuU
speed, enters the harbour. . . . Advancing so fast, with sails
swollen by the wind, it showed us the joj^ul faces of its sailors
and a band of youths crowned with green leaves, with smiling
faces, waving over their heads their banners, saluted from
their prow their victorious country, as yet ignorant of her
triumph."

Signals of this ship's arrival having flown from the watch-
tOwers, there was great crowding to the river, and Petrarch
further related that the sight of the enemy's flags, hung at
the galley's prow, announced a victory. " It was thought
some battle had been won or some city taken : no one dared
to hope the war was ended till the messengers had landed
and told all the news to the Council." And then we have
the particular account of Celsi's reception of the glad in-
telligence.

" When he heard the tidings the Doge Lorenzo — to whose
grandeur the name of Celso well corresponds for his magna-
nimity, his courtesy and every noble virtue, but, above all,
for his religious piety and memorable love to his country —
wished to offer solemn thanks to God, with all his people,
by a splendid ceremony, especially in the basilica of St. Mark
the Evangelist, than which there is nothing, I believe, on
earth more beautiful."

In regard to the assemblage on the Piazza for the great
Tournament, Petrarch's words are also memorable : —

" No sex, no age, no condition was wanting. The Doge
with a numerous suite occupied the front of the temple,
over the vestibule, and where from the marble balcony he
could behold the sparkling world at his feet." The site was
approximately where stand the four horses of gilded bronze.

TRAGEDY IN THE PALACE 177

" works of ancient and superlative artifice," so lifelike that
" one seems almost to hear their stamping and neighing."

In order that the setting sun at evening should not dazzle
the eyes with its splendour, Petrarch noted that there was
provided an awning of richly coloured tapestries. " I myself,"
he wrote on, " by invitation (and such is the frequent act
of graciousness of the Doge towards me) was appointed to
sit upon his right hand. The Grand Piazza, the church
itself, the towers, the roofs, the portico^, the windows, were
all not only full but overrunning with people. Facing the
church, a magnificent gallery had been erected for the matrons
of Venice, who, to the number of four hundred, adorned and
brightened the festival."

Petrarch's account concludes with the statements that
certain Englishmen, relatives of the British King, happening
to be then in Venice, took part in the jousts. Besides these
notables, King Peter of Cyprus also entered into mock combat
with a son of the Condottier — Victor Dal Verme.

All the foreigners present, so Petrarch declared, were
stunned by the sight of so much magnificence ; and most
magnificent of all the sights was Doge Lorenzo Celsi, who
knew so well how to enhance the dignity and state of his
office by his own grand manner and handsome presence.

It had been ever Celsi's policy to magnify his office,
and the Promissione of his successor contained a clause bind-
ing the Doge never to surpass the limits of the laws pre-
scribed. Endeavours of a few envious to make out against
Celsi, after his death, a case of having subverted the con-
stitution as distinctly as Faliero had done, proved unsuccess-
ful, and a special decree of the Council of Ten absolved
Lorenzo Celsi from all suspicion of having attempted anything
against the honour of Venice. Moreover, the new Doge, after
his enthronement, made a public declaration that any accusa-
tions to the contrary were gross calumnies.

12

CHAPTER XI
PATRIOTS, PURISTS AND PROFLIGATES

A.D. 1365 TO I4I4

THE name of Marco Corner (or Comaro) is already
familiar. He was a long-tried servant of the State,
but upon his election objections were raised to his
proclamation because he had married a plebeian, and had a
number of plebeian relatives.

A member of the Delfino family drew a picture of the terrible
consequences that would follow an invasion of the ducal house-
hold by a horde of inferior persons, who might pr> into affairs
of state, ascertain secrets of government and commit depreda-
tions on good manners and judicial integrity. The graphic
arguments of Delfino had their effect in an assembly of
patricians, all anxious to preserve their order pure and to
keep the political administration in their own hands.

Opposition to Comer was also offered on three other heads :
firstly, his great age ; secondly, his poverty ; and thirdly,
his close friendships with many foreign princes.

To aU of these objections, to which, after they had been
submitted to him in writing, it was the right of the Doge-elect
to reply before the fuU conclave of the Forty-One, Comer
responded with simple dignity and direct statement. He weis
undoubtedly aged, he said, but still in the service of the Republic
and disposed and ready to continue that service. His poverty
should be counted rather an advantage than a disadvantage,
since it proved his long integrity in many ofl&ces ; besides, in
his mode of living, his dress and his house, he had always
preserved decency without profusion or show, and used his

patrimony judiciously. As to his friendships with princes,

178

PATRIOTS, PURISTS AND PROFLIGATES 179

when he searched into their origins, occasions and ends, he found
he had contracted them all, when sent to their courts as Am-
bassador, and, one and all, redounded to the benefit, not to the
damage of his country. " And if," he continued with warmth,
" I behaved myself before those princes with so much deference
and so courteously that they have remained my friends and bear
me good will, is that to be ascribed to me as infamy ? No, by the
love of God, if good be so blasphemed, what will ever evil be ? "
Then in defence of " Madonna Caterina," his wife, and her
family. Comer spoke grandly.

He was not alone in having taken a wife of the people, yet
for him alone such a step was to be counted as a sin ! How
cotild his marriage point to lack of love and zeal for his country,
in himself ? What should he say in regard to Caterina's
relatives ? Every one knew them and every one was aware
that they were the inferiors of none in the sincerity of their
faith and in their affectionate reverence for their beloved city.
Using the imagery suggested by a common phenomenon of the
marshes which characterizes Venetian landscape, Comaro be-
sought the Forty-One not to be frightened by the spectres that
had been conjured up to warn them against him ; but rather,
he said, " in the spirit of Truth, and by the light of your own
judgments, understand that it has happened to you, as it
happens to those who sometimes in the summer see f antoms
rising against the sky, and then the sun consumes, and the wind
dissolves, puts to fhght and disperses them." Dropping meta-
phor, he referred again directly to his wife, although hesitating
to speak of her, because he did not wish it to be said that he
praised things of his own. " But I teU you solemnly," he
concluded, " that for propriety of behaviour, for goodness, for
diligence and prudence in household management, for courtesy
and all knowledge of etiquette and proper speech, she is second
to none. With all this," he added," I am and will be always
the servant of you aU, my lords, and my desire will be to do only
that which is pleasing to you."

By their very sincerity, the words of the greybeard
triumphed, and with twenty-six votes in his favour, he
became Doge on Monday, 21st July 1365. Certain provisions
were made that may be regarded as compromises between his

i8o THE DOGES OF VENICE

supporters and opposers. Marco Comer's Promissione con-
tained the corrections that the Doge should be obliged, when-
ever it should be the will of the six privy councillors and
of the majority of the Grand CouncU, to abdicate the throne
and quit the . Ducal Palace at three days' notice, under
penalty of Confiscation of his property. On his side, however,
the ducal dignity could not be renounced without the ante-
cedent consent of the Council. Further, the Avogadori were
to watch that his household consisted of the prescribed number
of persons, who were to be obliged to reside in the palace ;
while the bills for their clothing and other necessaries were to
be constantly submitted to appointed overseers. If found to
be more than a month owing, their amount was to be stopped
out of the Doge's salary. It was further ordered that any
member of the Dogaressa's family being found armed in the
palace after the ringing of the third campana — unless upon the
business of the Doge — should be condemned in the same way
that any other citizen would be for the like offence.

Under pressure of the idea that a Doge of limited private
means would probably make extraordinary drafts on the public
funds, Marco Comer was also prohibited from spending more
than 100 lire de piccoli a year on embellishments of the palace,
and it is one sign of his particular carefulness that, in spite of
this prohibition, it was he who began the building of the pillared
fagade to the Grand Canal, and that, during his short reign,
great progress was made in the adornment of the new Great
Council Chamber. Among the decorations begun or carried
out by the direction of Doge Corner, were frescoes represent-
ing the story of Doge Sebastiano Ziani, Pope Alexander iii
and Frederick Barbarossa, and a series of portraits of all the
Doges of Venice from the time of Beato de Antenori.

The whole course of the ship of state during the reign of
Doge Comer is indicative of the sagacity and moderatiori of
the man at the helm. It was a time of peace. Quiet had been
established in Crete, and there was that lull in European strifes
that gave Pope Urban vi the courage to leave Avignon and
reseat the papacy in Rome. The Venetians were among the
Italian peoples who responded to the Pontiff's request to send
to him at Marseilles an escort of ships of war. It was a4esir-

PATRIOTS, PURISTS AND PROFLIGATES i8i

able thing for Venice, politically as well as spiritually, that the
Pope should return to Italy. Comer's policy was that of
Venice. To a demand of the Duke of Savoy to join with him
in an expedition, against the Turks, the Doge first gave refusal.
Being pressed by the Conte di Virtu (Visconti), who came with
the Duke to Venice, Comer and his Council eventually yielded
to the extent of promising two galleys and a sum of money to
be secured on the Island of Tenedo. At the same time, how-
ever, trading terms were resumed with the Sultan of Alexandria.
Venetian ambassadors had well argued before the Pope that
the break in their commercial relations with Egypt had only
irritated the African Turks without repressing them, and that
the loss of income in consequence had made the ducal govern-
ment less powerful to oppose the Turks' advance in Europe.
The Pontiff's grace was obtained, and by a responsive grace
of the Doge it was soon after decided to maintain at the papal
court, at salaries of 200 ducats a year, two Venetian Cardinals.

Marco Comer died, greatly honoured, after a three years'
reign of prosperity. To him succeeded one of the inspiring
charactert^of Venetian story.

Andrea Contarini was a Doge who three times refused
the biretta, but by the prayers of his family, the insistence
of the Forty-One and the inexorability of Venetian law, was
made to accept it in the end. The cause of his refusal seems
to have been twofold. He had long been a public servant,
but was a lover of rural pursuits and wished to spend his
remaining days on his estate in the Paduan territory, under
vines and fig-trees of his own cultivation. Any indulgence
of personal taste or predilection to the neglect of civic
responsibility was, ho^yever, too treasonable an act in the
eyes of a Venetian aristocrat to have moved him to a deter-
mined contempt of an honour offered to him, had it not been
for a scruple which, it is curious to reflect, did not weigh
with the electors, although it prevailed with himself.

In the early days of his career, Andrea Contarini had been
in Crete, and there some soothsaying woman had warned
him that should be ever come to the head of his country's
government, the land he reigned over would be plunged
into great misery and misfortune.

i82 THE DOGES OF VENICE

This prognostication, however, had not made his family
fearful, and the announcement by a second deputation from
the electors, that if he would not mount the throne he would
be forthwith deprived of his property and banished from the
Dogado, brought forth tears and prayers from his wife and
children ; these, added to the resolution of the Government,
conducted him at last, in state, to Venice and made him
take the ducal oath, to which a special addition for him was
that neither he, nor the Dogaressa, nor any child, nephew
or niece of theirs, should ever acquire land in any foreign
country or Venetian province outside the Dogado ; and that,
possessing any ultra- Venetian land on his accession, it should,
no matter to which member of the family it belonged, be
promptly sold. So much for the country estate in the Paduan
territory ! A Doge of Venice must have no thought or interest,
present or prospective, for any place but Venice ; for any
occupation but that of governing Venice.

Nevertheless, the chosen head of the Signory was vested
as a King. It was made obligatory for the Doge to assume
a gold-embroidered mantle and his ducal coronet on all
occasions of state. Celsi had added the crucifix to the
already jewelled circlet, but this addition made it too heavy
to be worn with comfort by any Doge lacking the extra-
ordinary vigour of the Venetian " Lorenzo the Magnificent."
It was enjoined, therefore, that the jewels of the crown should
be rearranged and reduced in number, and the diadem
placed in the charge of the Dean of St. Mark's, to be brought
out and worn by the Doge at ceremonies.

The first five years of Contarini's reign were fraught
indeed with sorrows and dangers for the Republic, though
the darkest hour came at the end. Trieste rebelled and
Padua renewed her menaces of fortress and salt- work building
on the confines of the Dogado. Both places were subdued,
but a greater affliction remained, in a plot against the safety
of the city and the lives of its distinguished citizens, formed by
the agents of Carrara in Venice itself. The wily villain had
sent to Venice, in the spring of 1372, a certain Friar Benedetto,
who with two traitor-servants of Venice — a Morosini and a
Molini, senators both — devised the deaths of the three nobles

PATRIOTS, PURISTS AND PROFLIGATES 183

known to be most inveterate against Paduan pretensions.
These three — a Dandolo, a Barbo and a Zane — seem all to
have escaped, but the intentions of Friar Benedetto and
other emissaries of Francesco Carrara were amply proved. The
whole affair was hatched in the house of an aged procuress
— a gobba or hunchback — and disclosed by two women
of the town, who may have been as venal as was the
beldame who trafficked in their shame. Some indications
there are, however, that the abused creatures were not wholly
wanton, and had at least more care for Venice and more
tenderness for the lives of fellow-countrymen, than the
recreant pregadi, Morosini and Molino. In any case, the
plot was divulged by the women of ill-repute, and so freely
spoken of by them and their associates, that the rumour of
Carrara's design ran like wUd-fire through the city, blazing
up into many a fiame of wild statement and desperate
assertion. Venice was panic-stricken. Every infamy was
believed of the Lord of Padua. He had had aU the wells
poisoned. He had paid desperadoes to set Venice on fire.
Extra guards were put on public buildings. Sentries were
posted at the fountains. No one was allowed to go about
armed, and special watch was set on the entrances to the city.
The beheading of one Paduan emissary, the imprisonment for
ten years of another, and the infliction of various punish-
ments on many more, showed that Venice knew how to defend
her own, and proved perhaps to the sufferers, the folly of
indiscreet confidences to women of no virtue. The traitors
learned too late that it was easier for women of Venice to
sell themselves than to sell their country.

But judicial defeats of Paduan policy had to be followed
by victories at arms. Carrara had the help of the Hungarians
under the Voivode of Transylvania, and the Venetians experi-
enced one grave defeat at Fossa Nuova, followed by a scourge
of malaria which decimated their forces. In the end, however,
the Republic triumphed ; the finishing of the war was helped
by intrigues against each other of members of the Carrara
family. In these intrigues Venice had not been too proud to
meddle. Their issue was the assassination of Francesco Carrara
and the succession of another MarsUio. Peace was made at

i84 THE DOGES OF VENICE

last by Pope Gregory xi, who greatly desired the hour of
his return to Italy to be free from discords on the peninsula.
Peace was indeed the dream of the hour, and the voice for the
moment of the soul of Italy was that of an Orator of the
Carrarese, who made a harangue before Doge Andrea Contarini
in the Sala del Maggior Consiglio in favour of Peace. The
Orator was Petrarch.

Previous to his appearance in the palace, the Poet had
assisted at the solemn ceremony before the altar of St. Mark,
in which the young Carrara on his knees asked pardon of the
Doge of Venice. Within a year of this ceremony, the writer
of the sonnets to Laura passed for ever from the shifting scene
of this world's politics.

But Venice and Doge Contarini had to enter upon a war
more horrible and alarming than any the Republic had yet
had part in ; a war in which the enemy forced a way through
the very gates of the lagoons, and seized the long-held fortress
of Chioggia, that from its ridge of soil looked west and north
to the mainland and the inmost islands.

It was the old enemy, the rival sea-power Genoa, which thus
penetrated into the fastnesses of the lagoon settlements, and
brought shame upon the Venetian Government for its lack of
foresight.

The situation was indeed critical for Venice. Complaints
and lamentations were loud, The city was on the verge of
a panic of despair. But one man saved the situation. The
septuagenarian Doge, Andrea Contarini, would not for a
moment give expression to his fear. He could not have been
as confident as he seemed. The promptitude and energy of
his actions show that at heart he was well-nigh as desperate
as those who quaked and chattered. The first shock over,
only a few of these remained; they might have been many
had Contarini's courage been less firm. The hour had come ;
the hour he had been warned of. Fell calamity descended
on the land he reigned over. The struggle was now between
a man and his fate. Contarini bared his arm and raised
his hand.

It was the work of a few hours to bring together on the
Piazza, an Arengo of the populace to whom, on behalf of the

PATRIOTS, PURISTS AND PROFLIGATES 185

Doge whose voice was probably too weak to reach the ears of all
assembled, Pietro Mocenigo spoke.

Grave was the danger, he told the crowd. The time had
come when it was incumbent on every man to arm himself in
defence of home, wife and family. The nobles would prove
themselves friends and brothers of the people. The rich would
give to their country all the trade vessels and fleets they
possessed, and in the hour of hunger which was already upon
them, would share to the last crust with their poorer fellow-
citizens. Mocenigo concluded the Doge's harangue with an
appeal to patriots, not only to man galleys and handle pikes,
but, in this time of their country's peril, to give the govern-
ment their advice.

The advice came with one voice : " To arms ! "

The seizure of Chioggia had taken place on i6th August
1379. It was not until 23rd December that Contarini issued
his proclamation, commanding all who were to sail with his
fighting fleet to Brondolo to be on their ships by noon, under
penalty of death. The four months intervening had been
filled with energetic action, and the determination and courage
of the Doge had not for one moment faltered. Yet prepara-
tions would have been hastened and the enemy given less time
to provide against coming ravages of siege and attack, had
not certain policies been followed and certain steps taken
that were directly attributable to that hesitancy and desire for
quiet which are the inalienable weaknesses of age. It is not
to be supposed that the seventy-three year old Doge was quite
alone within the Signory in thinking that negotiations might
yet redeem Chioggia and revive Venice. It is safe to assert,
however, that had Doge Contarini, in this day of his fame and
favour, been a stalwart of fifty, free from all disposition for
retirement and haunted by no predictions of calamity in his
reign, his government had not attempted at the eleventh hour
to affect a compromise with Genoa ; neither would it have
ignored the popular wish to place Vettore Pisani at the head
of the national forces, nor have made a lesser man — Taddeo
Giustiniani — the Captain-General.

Yet the sending to the Lord Francesco at Padua of
a mission of peace which was referred by him to the Genoese

i86 THE DOGES OF VENICE

Admiral — Doria — at Ghioggia, was a move not all unwise. The
answer of the haughty Doria certainly proved to any yet
unconvinced in Venice that only by a fight to the finish with
the Genoese could the freedom of their state be preserved.
Moreover, it fanned the flame of patriotic passion 'to white
heat, and made conscription seem a small thing, because
thrown into the balance against slavery.

" By God's faith, my lords of Venice," cried Doria to the
Doge's embassy, " ye shall have no peace from the Lord of
Padua, nor from our Commune of Genoa, until I have put a
bit into the mouths of the horses of your Evangelist St. Mark.
When they have been bridled, you shall then, in sooth, have a
good peace, and this is our purpose, and that of our Com-
mune."

When the order passed for the release of Vettore Pisani,
who had been condemned, after an unfortunate battle, for
lack of prevision, he was met at his dungeon door by Michele
Steno, now nearly seventy years of age. Steno, as Proveditor
with Pisani's army, had been accused of abandoning a battle
before it was fought out. For this he had been deprived
of all his offices for the space of one year. Now he was to
have the honour of sailing on one of the galleys that were
to accompany Doge Contarini's vessel.

" Viva II nostra Vettore! Viva Vettore Pisani!" the Venetians
shouted as, shoulder high, they bore their hero to the Ducal
Palace where he was awaited on the courtyard steps by
Contarini and the Senators.

" Viva San Marco !" was the pious and patriotic response
of Pisani, and it has been written that by his own desire he
was carried first to the Church of the Evangelist and after-
wards presented before the Doge. From another chronicle
we learn that " M. lo Dose," descending the staircase, took
Pisani by the hand and led him into the church, where before
the High Altar he gave him the gonfalon. It may well have
been that both Doge and warrior performed together their
devotions, before Contarini in the palace addressed Pisani
in words that are full of the pride of Venice in the fourteenth
century, although the historian Romanin calls them only
" grave and affecting."

PATRIOTS, PURISTS AND PROFLIGATES 187

Contaxini began by declaring the confidence of the govern-
ment in Pisani's valour, which, so the Doge said, could not
be more nobly exercised than in the defence of his country.
The affection now demonstrated to Pisani by so many of
his fellow-citizens, obliged the Doge to commit to obhvion
every past happening, and to devote all his ardour to showing
by deeds that he placed the good of the Republic before
private resentments. " Repair your wise conduct which
has suffered damage," the Doge continued, " and be revenged
not for the insiilt which you may believe was put upon you
by our justice, but for that which our country has received
from the victorious enemy, and rather endeavour to remind
yourself of the present grace than of the past justice, which
may now be belied, since fortune is giving you this good
occasion in which by victory over the enemy you may dis-
credit the accusations of the past, and make your country
as much obhged to you as you yourself are now beholden
to it."

To the ducal exhortation, the enlarged prisoner replied
shortly that he had always accommodated himself to public
deliberations and had always reverenced public decrees ;
that he wished neither to lament over nor to recall past
circumstances, but only to endeavour by actions worthy of
so great a country, to fulfil the task with which he had just
been honoured.

This task, so it transpired, was the protection of the
Lido, and when the news flew that the hero had been granted
only a subordinate command, there was turbulence indeed
in Venice, and, as if from the opening earth, conspirators
sprang up to tempt Pisani to assume the dictatorship of the
city and proclaim himself the Prince. For such as these
Pisani employed the arguments of right-hand blows.

" Let none who wish me well say Viva Pisani," he said,
" but Viva San Marco."

With those, however, who volunteered for service in the
army under him he used a different method. " Brethren
and friends, go to the Signory, they wiU counsel you what
to do," he said to them. But the volunteers threw down
their banners, and, tramphng them under foot, declared they

i88 THE DOGES OF VENICE

would take commands from none but Pisani. So the appoint-
ment of Giustiniani was cancelled, and the Doge made the
people's hero his Admiral and Vice-Captain-General.

The going of the aged Contarini to the very forefront of
the battle had the most inspiring effect. It was winter and
the weather cold and raw. The mists lay on the lagoons;
and it required some courage, not alone to sail forth, but
to remain within the area of sharp contest. It was the plan
of Pisani to hem the Genoese in within their own lines and to
cut off supplies by sea and land. The entrances to the lagoon
at Malamocco and San Antonio were already closed by
sunken vessels piled with stones. It remained to block up
the Lombardy Canal and the straits of Chioggia and Brondolo.
This was accomplished by men up to their waists in water,
and in imminent danger either of being drowned or shot.
Even on the first day — 24th December — there were many
who regarded the position as hopeless, and more who felt
the suffering and hardship of the winter siege in galleys and
other cockle-craft to be past bearing. Disaffection spread
and a mutiny threatened. The exposure was severely trying
to the Doge, but he responded at once to the prayer of his
Admiral to take oath upon his sword : "I, who am nearing
my eightieth year, will rather die than return without victory."

All this happened on Christmas Day, and the troops
and seamen were heartened by it. But food was scarce on
the galleys. Disease was breaking out. On the watch-tower
of St. Mark, men looked eagerly for the return from foreign
parts of the great Admiral Carlo Zeno, with whom was the
pride of the Venetian fleet. They scanned the horizon
anxiously, too, for Genoese reinforcements.

On the first day of the year 1380 a flight of sails was at
last descried. On they came. Were they friends or foes ?
Eighteen ships in all. Nearer at last, and the Lion of St.
Mark floating above them. It was Carlo Zeno.

Yet with all the combined forces of Venice, and with the
Doge ever on his flag-ship to reconcile disputing English,
German and Italian troops in the pay of the Republic, to
shame skulkers and to encourage patriots, Chioggia was not
won back for six more months.

PATRIOTS, PURISTS AND PROFLIGATES 189

During that time Contarini, wearying of the long strain
and mindful that as an actual fighting engine no man of
seventy-four can be quite efficient, wrote one letter at least
to the provisional government, only eighteen miles away on
Rialto, to ask leave to return. The Signory answered him
with compliments and a suave disregard of any specific request.
The councillors of the Doge knew better than the Doge himself
the inspirational and cohesive value of his presence at the
front. The full might and majesty of Venice had to be arrayed
in the place where the intruders on the national domesticity
and the destroyers of the national safety and peace had drawn
themselves up for menace and attack.

On the 24th of June the Doge's long waiting at the place of
battle was rewarded by the fall of Chioggia and the delivery
of 4440 captives — most of them emaciated and cadaverous —
into his hands. He made a triumphal entry and planted the
Lion of St. Mark on the Chioggian campanile. Then in the
hastily prepared Bucintoro, a hundred rowers brought him
from San Clemente to the Piazzetta, where he landed on
30th June. So great was the concourse of people there to
welcome him that only with the utmost difficulty was a way
cleared for his passage to the great basilica, where Mass was
sung to celebrate the merciful deliverance of the Republic.

Seven weeks later it became the solemn and pitiable duty
of Doge Contarini to head the great throng of mourners that
followed Vettore Pisani, stricken down in the prime of his age
— he was 55 — to his tomb in San Antonio. A few days later,
28th August, and the great gonfalon of St. Mark was handed
by the Doge with all ceremony to Carlo Zeno, appointed to
succeed Pisani as Captain-General. Contarini himself lived
on, an all but deified hero, until his seventy-eighth year. He
was succeeded by Michele Morosini — a Procurator of St.
Mark — who, in his own place and his own way, showed himself
as courageous as the Doge, who at seventy-four made himself
with the youngest and most insignificant of his army, a target
for the enemy's bolts of war. In the time of the national
dismay, when it seemed indeed that a bridle would be put on
the horses of St. Mark, and when for the equipment of forces
of war and other ends, property was being so freely sold,

igo THE DOGES OF VENICE

that it was thought none but a fool would buy, Morosini com-
mitted, what chattering onlookers deemed the extreme foUy
of purchasing from the government some houses belonging
to the Commune, for 25,000 ducats. He had already given
38,000 ducats to the loan raised from the citizens of Venice
for the special war needs. But this peculiarly honourable, if
half-forced, contribution, was better understood by the com-
mercial Venetian than the payment of sound money for
bad goods . To his face Morosini was twitted with his simplicity,
and told he should have kept his ducats.

The reply of the philanthropist-patriot, is ever memorable :
" If this land come to ill, money is nothing to me."

The spirit of that reply was the spirit that saved Venice,
and the fact that, in later years, Morosini's purchases yielded
at least a fourfold return is no reflection on his faith and
loyalty.

Every man fights best with the weapons he has been
trained to use. Morosini may have been accustomed to
invest and deal in house-property. In any case, his profuse
charities had won for him the name of " the Father of the Poor."
That name he deserved also by coming to the aid of Venice in
the time of her dire need, and by preventing for her children
that panic which is caused by absolute stagnation of the
property market.

No Doge of Venice was ever more lauded, either in his
lifetime, by his Forty-One electors and those who acclaimed
him on the Piazza, or by historians of many centuries after
his death. Yet Venice enjoyed the advantages of his admini-
stration for less than a year. He was swept off by the plague
on 15th October 1382.

Four months passed before Doge Antonio Veniero was
crowned and throned. A former governor of Tenedo, he was
Governor of Crete at the time of his election, and communica-
tions in the fourteenth century could not be flashed through
air. When he did arrive on Rialto he lost no time in putting
forth every effort to make his country, recently brought so low,
both prosperous and potent.

" Beginning with religion," so Romanin tells us, " he gave
to the Carthusian fathers the Island of San Andrea near the

PATRIOTS, PURISTS AND PROFLIGATES 191

Lido di S. Nicolo, where they built a noble church and
monastery." Continuing his good work, Antonio Veniero
caused Chioggia to be rebuilt and refortified, and, for the
benefit of trade, he entered into various treaties with foreign
princes, among them the Kings of England and Granada.

Under this energetic and capable Doge the revival of
commerce was extraordinary, and Venice came rapidly to a
position of authority in the affairs of the Italian peninsula.
Yet we may read the secret of his own pre-eminence and of the
growing fame of the Republic, not so much in his outward and
official acts of diplomacy and aggression, as in the habit and
discipline of his mind, which enabled him to punish his own
son with rigour and determination, for an offence hardly
greater than that of Michele Steno at Marino Faliero's ball,
which had long since been forgiven and forgotten.

The story of Luigi Veniero's fault is, that having cherished
a passion for a married woman of rank, and being by her
discarded for another lover, he went, under cover of night, to
the residence of her husband, Giovanni de Boccolis, a man of
pompous respectability, and fixed up over his door a pair of
horns, with underneath them a placard containing many
scurrilous and indecent words, and referring by name not only to
the wife but to the sister and the mother-in-law of Ser. Giovanni.

To make matters worse for this abominably insulted
personage, and for his wife, sister and mother-in-law too,
the house so branded stood on the Holy Trinity bridge, and
was bound to be observed by a great number of passers-by.
De Boccolis, anxious rather for the punishment of the offender
than for the suppression of the scandal, lodged a petition with
the criminal court of the Forty, asking for the condemnation
of Luigi Veniero to two months' imprisonment in one of the
lower dimgeons, and to the payment of 100 ducats. Further-
more, de Boccolis demanded that the recreant should be
prohibited from entering the contrada of Holy Trinity, by
land or by water, for ten years to come.

The penalties thus proposed were exacted to the letter,
with the addition, it would seem, of the term of Luigi's ex-
clusion from the quarter where his horrid act was committed,
being prescribed as for ever. Luigi was consigned to the

192 THE DOGES OF VENICE

dungeons, and thete falling ill he implored his father in letter
after letter to grant him his release. It must have been
clear, even to eyes scaled with official and technical prejudices,
that but one end awaited the afflicted Luigi, were he left to
finish his sentence as the law had decreed. But Doge Veniero
was a Doge indeed. He would not, even for the life of his boy,
go beyond the limits of his legal powers. No doubt he had felt
his son's offence to be an outrage on his ducal and family
honour, as well as on that of de Boccolis, but it seems to have
been no personal feeling that made him inexorable. He let
his son die miserably in his deep cell, firstly because he was too
proud to claim a prerogative or even to exercise an influence
as Doge, for the benefit of his own flesh and blood ; and,
secondly, because as Doge, and so far as in him lay, he was
determined to stamp out some of the vicious habits and
braggart gallantries that were the all too common, because the
all too fashionable, pastimes of the youth of his city.

We cannot think that it did not go hard with the father
when news of his son's death in gaol was brought to him. Yet
there remains no word in Venetian record to tell us that he
grieved. All that we know is that he had mastered the
patrician task of sacrificing all private interests to public
concerns, and that although his pride in his family was great,
his pride in his of&ce was greater. Another son, Nicolo, he
married to Petronilla Felicita, widow of a Duke of the Archi-
pelago. His daughter he betrothed to a ten-year-old kinsman
of that Duke. In making these alliances he was in danger
of exceeding the spirit while keeping within the letter of the
laws governing his position. His fellow-aristocrats appear to
have been none too pleased with relationships which, although
useful in some respects to communities of rank, have
also many drawbacks. The whole question of inter-
marriages between members of the ducal families of Venice
and princes and princesses of other reigning houses, was
settled on the death of Antonio Veniero by the insertion in
the Promissione of Michele Steno of a clause prohibiting any
wedding contracts for sons, daughters, or grandsons of a
Venetian Doge with foreigners of any rank, except with the
consent of the Forty and of the majority of the Great Council.

PATRIOTS, PURISTS AND PROFLIGATES 193

It was an irony of fate assuredly that made the successor
of a purist father who had treated without mercy his profligate
son, to be none other than he who has remained through
many centuries the very prototype in Venetian story of the
raucous libertinism of untempered youth.

That MiCHELE Steno had laboured through a long career
of state service to blot out the scandal of his early profligacy
and passion, and, despite a slackness on one occasion, had
indeed made his dead self a stepping-stone to better things,
is not to be gainsaid. Nevertheless, the turn of an election
is often decided by a reaction of moral feeling, and it would
seem that some thought passed in Venice that the severity
of Veniero had been too inhmnan to be really good. It was
believed that a certain amount of early laxity was more
natural in a man than the rigidity of view and sentiment
that could lead a father to consign his own son to an early
death. Yet Steno on the throne, in his seventieth year, and
the husband of a lady of religious principle and moral sensibility,
was truly and really another man from Steno the gay bachelor
and court-ruifler of twenty-three. The only characteristic
that persisted was a certain fire of self-assertion ; a spirit that
was never to be quenched, even by deluges of sarcasm and
opposition.

" WUl your Serenity be pleased to sit down and be quiet ? "
were words impudently addressed to Doge Steno when, in his
eighty-first year, he declared at a sitting of the Great Council
that the Avogadori had no jurisdiction in the matter of a
resolution formally put and carried, which these advocates
desired to annul. The pert request had no effect upon
Michele Steno's prosy eloquence. With all the loquacity of
his years and temper, he continued to talk imtil he had ex-
hausted his argupients. The Avogadori revenged themselves
by formally pronouncing him guilty of a misdemeanour in
haranguing against their opinions, and liable to a penalty
therefor of 1000 lire. Three months passed, and nobody in
the Government had the hardihood to put the legal sentence
into execution. But Steno was not the man to accept an
invidious position. Boldly he petitioned the CouncU " either
to cite him before it or to rescind the sentence." This hot
13

194 THE DOGES OF VENICE

challenge was too much for officialdom. The advocates not
only withdrew their censure and apologized, but caused to be
drawn up by distinguished men of law, a long opinion in which
it was asserted that the Doge had not exceeded his functions
in expressing his views on the legality of the attempts of the
Avogadori.

Both retraction and apology were made to age, repute and
personality, rather than to principle.

The Promissione of Steno's successor provided against too
much ducal commenting on legal sentences in the future.

One can but admire Steno's last defiance of the authority
of law and government. His fourteen years upon the throne
had been years of state and magnificence. His stud of horses
was as famous as that of Lorenzo Celsi, and his personal pride
and gallant bearing had helped greatly to maintain the Signor-
ial dignity. It was Doge Steno who received the final sur-
render of Padua to Venetian dominance, and who condemned
the last three members of the Carrara family, first to prisons,
and then to deaths by strangulation. It was Steno too who
undid the agreements between the truculent and deceptive
Francesco Novello Carrara, and his son-in-law the illegitimate
Niccolo d'Este of Ferrara, by virtue of which D'Este was to
wrest Polesina from the Venetians, who held it as security for a
loan made to him at a time when he was opposing the claims
of his legitimate brother Azzo to the lordship of Ferrara.

Francesco — called Novello to distinguish him from his more
famous father, who came to be known as Francesco VeccMo —
was the boy who had knelt at the feet of Doge Contarini when
Petrarch, as Orator of Peace, stood by. But neither the cere-
monial submission of that time, nor the contracts of a Treaty ^
made later, had served to make the Carrarese either a loyal
friend or a peaceful ruler. Other plots of the character of the
" Gobba " conspiracy had been attempted in Venice, and
secret presents from the agents of Carrara had been offered to
and accepted by Venetian law-officers and agents, aU of whom
had been hanged for their treacheries between the red columns
of the Ducal Palace. Hoping for Venetian clemency towards
his son, the elder Francesco had resigned the lordship of Padua

^.Treaty of_Turin.

o °

PATRIOTS, PURISTS AND PROFLIGATES 195

in the younger's favour, and Novella, quite as active and deceit-
ful, and even more daring than his father, had regained the
friendships of several princes lost by Vecchio ; among them,
that of the Doge of Venice. By the monetary help of Venice,
Novella bought back from Milan all his former domains. To
give thanks for this help he had knelt again in the Ducal
Palace before a Doge (Veniero) ; this time having his own son
with him. In giving thanks, Novella had declared himself and
his family to be thenceforth devoted to the Doge of Venice, and
evermore to be commanded by His Serenity. Graciously,
Veniero had bidden him rise, embraced him and assured him
of the friendship of the Republic.

Yet in Doge Steno's time, when the Signory gave notice to
the Lord Carrara that, by an arrangement with the Duchess of
Milan, Venice was about to accept the submission of Vicenza,
Francesco NoveUo cropped the ears and slit the nostrils of the
trumpet sent to announce the fact, and capped his essay in grim
humour with the remark, " Out of this trumpet we will make a
lion of St. Mark." Reminded by the Signory of his obligations to
Venice, and told that he had no right to object to the exercise of
a lordship that had been volimtarily ceded, the Paduan rephed
that he wondered much at the rashness of the Venetians who,
although they had no rights on terra firma, dared to dictate laws
to those who legitimately ruled there. " Let them go," he
said, " and content themselves with their estuaries and swamps,
and leave the empire of the land to those to whom it properly
belongs."

This new impertinence led to preparations for war in the
true Venetian way. Mouths of rivers were fortified and
palisades constructed. Pandolfo Malatesta, Lord of Pesaro,
was appointed Condottier Captain-General, and Carlo Zeno,
" the Unconquerable," and another bold son of Venice, Pietro
Emo, were made Proveditori of the army. Further, the Signory
became champions of Azzo d'Este against his usurping bastard
brother Niccolo, and in the Great Council it was solemnly
decreed that " war should be waged against the Carrarese to
the very utmost of the power and possibiUty of the Commune
of Venice."

It was a sign premonitory of the character of a Doge to be,

196 THE DOGES OF VENICE

that this decree was passed upon the instigation of Francesco
FoscARi, one of the Chiefs of the Forty.

It was now the turn of Carrara to send a trumpet. But
the temper in which Doge Steno and his government enter-
tained the functionary of quaint name, was very different
from that in which Francesco Novello had received the un-
fortunate herald from the Signory. It is true the populace
of Venice handled the Paduan messenger roughly. They
were not trained, as were their lords, to the art of restraining
feeling, and before the miserable instrument of Carrarese defiance
could be rescued, his clothes were torn from his back. Brought
with a guard to the Ducal Palace, he delivered to Doge Steno
a letter in which Carrara vaunted himself that he had ever
proved a dutiful son of the Republic, although the Venetian
Government had studiously thwarted all his projects. He
finished up by declaring darkly that out of wars spring things that
men wot not of. The delivery of this letter was followed by a
dramatic flinging of the glove of Carrara at the feet of the Doge.

" I challenge you on the part of my lord, the Lord of
Padua," cried the trumpet.

" You are welcome," returned his Serenity with his
serenest air, and, since the aged Steno could never forbear
to sermonize, he continued, " we have accepted the challenge
with gratification, hoping that the Almighty, who abases the
proud and confounds the wicked counsels of princes, will smite
him on that account, if He does not hurl him down into heU."

Hard words break no bones, and at least the unfortunate
herald of Padua had need to be thankful for Steno's talent
of sententiousness. More grateful still must the present
of a new suit of clothes, an honourable dismissal and a safe
escort back to Padua, have made him. He returned home
with the features of his face undamaged. " A lucky fellow,
indeed," as a contemporary said, " since he found enemies
more generous than the master whom he had served for
twenty years." But we do not know in what ways the niggard-
liness of his master was displayed.

The progress of the war declared by Steno, was marked
by a series of successes for which Carlo Zeno was mainly
responsible. But the aged Doge fought in his own place and

PATRIOTS, PURISTS AND PROFLIGATES 197

achieved victories of intrigue and finesse. Bringing into play
his own relationship to the Lord of Ferrara as godfather — for
Steno had held the illegitimate Niccolo d'Este at the font —
he persuaded him to break off friendship with his father-in-law,
Novella Carrara. The loss of the Ferrarese was a blow in a
vulnerable spot of the Paduan armament. In a still more
determined fashion did the Signory of Venice, with the Doge
at its head, out-manoeuvre Novella Carrara by keeping in
durance his son Jacopo who, after yielding Verona to the
Venetians, had attempted flight by scaling the walls in com-
pany with a Paduan follower, Paolo Leone.

Though imprisoned in the Orba, Jacopo Carrara was
treated well enough, until his father once again broke faith
with Venice.

Novella had agreed to peace, in return for a large money
payment being made by Venice to the Carrara family, on the
conditions that its members lived no longer either in Ferrara,
Friuli, or the neighbourhood of Padua, and that, in return
for a ransom, Obizzo da Polenta, the Ravennese ally of Venice,
should be released from the confinement in which Carrara
held him. This agreement was not kept, so Jacopo was removed
from the Orba, on the ground floor of the palace overlooking
the quay, and put in irons in a lower dungeon, with a diet
of bread and water. His companion in prison was the man
Leone who had been seized with his prince just outside the
walls of Verona, and there Jacopo received from the Council
of the Ten the following letter : —

" Jacopo, why, knowest thou, and for what cause thinkest
thou it is, that thy father who was contented, and promised
to let the Signor Obizzo da Polenta go fpr 3500 ducats, now
is acting contrary to his promise and wants other condi-
tions ? By so much uncertainty, he makes it certain that
thou wilt remain in the condition in which thou art at present,
without other food than bread and water, so long as thy
father will not let go the said Obbizo for the sum with which
he was content, which was 3500 ducats. And for this reason,
if thou desirest to write anything about the circumstances
of the condition and the restraints in which thou fmdest
thyself, thou mayest write that which thou wouldst, and
we promise thee we will not have thy letter opened, so that
thou mayest write whatever thou wishest and pleasest, and

igS THE DOGES OF VENICE

thy letter. will be sent by that Paduan who is at present in
prison with thee, and who has seen and heard all and can
inform thy father of the truth of everything, and we will give
him safe conduct so that he may travel in security."

As a reply to the letter of Jacopo, undoubtedly carried
by Leone, came the liberation of Obizzo da Polenta, who
tried to negotiate fresh terms between the Signory and Novella
Carrara. But although Jacopo's miseries were softened by
his re-establishment in the more comfortable quarters of the
Orba, Padua was not surrendered and further provisions
were made in Venice for continuance of the war. In the end,
famine and pestilence effected what the troops of Venice and
her allies failed to bring about. Padua capitulated, and the
armies of Milan, Mantua and Venice entered the town. But
the Milanese and Mantuans passed out as they came in,
the starved people of Padua sullenly watching the procession.
When the Venetians arrived, however, they were greeted
with cries of "Marco/ Marco/" The Paduans acknow-
ledged their conquerors, and the silver seal of their commune
was given up for presentation to the Doge. This was on
22nd November 1405. Already on the 20th the Captain-
General of the Milanese forces — Galeazzo Visconti — had written
to Venice desiring instructions concerning Carrara, who, so
Galeazzo said, was in Milanese hands, but declared himself
willing to trust himself to the magnanimity of the Republic.
Willing or not, Francesco Novello Carrara and his son
Francesco iii were taken into custody the day after the
occupation of Padua by the Venetians (23rd November) and
conducted to Venice, where they were assaUed by the populace
with infuriated cries of " Crucify them, crucify them ! " It
was believed that Novello, like his father, had attempted to
poison the wells of Venice. Whether this were true or not,
the instinct of the people which recognized the Paduan enemy
as primarily a state traitor and only secondarily a foreign
foe, was not wrong.

To protect them from mob violence, the prisoners of war
were speedily conveyed to the Island of San Giorgio, whence
they were reconducted after a few days to the Ducal Palace.
Lowly they knelt before the Doge, accusing themselves volubly,

PATRIOTS, PURISTS AND PROFLIGATES 199

till, with that grace which is the polish of courts, Steno bade
both rise and sit beside him. The occasion was good for a sancti-
monious harangue. Yet even the wordy Steno dared not instance
one-half of the grievances of Venice against the Carrarese.
Lightly he touched upon their ingratitude ; then delivered
himself of many platitudes, with an air of great benevolence.

The prisoners, however, were being watched. It was found
that relatives and dependents of theirs were hovering near
the city, armed with much money to be used for bribery and
machinations of all kinds against the integrity of Venice, and
for the re-edification of Carrarese independence. Other in-
formations and examinations led to discovery of recent plots
against the honour of Venice and recent raids upon the honesty
of Venetian governors. The Doge had yet to preside at
councils where the criminality of the Carrarese, not as open
enemies of Venetian power on the mainland, but as spies and
traitors within the gates of the lagoon city, was laboriously
and painfuUy inquired into. From San Giorgio the two
Francesci were transferred to the closer confines of a prison
called the Torricelia, on the highest story of the palace, where
detained personages of distinction were used to be lodged.
To the Torricelia there came one day a Benedictine friar to
prepare the fallen Paduan for his last hours. With ftirious
diatribe against the Republic and shockingly horrible curses
on the Council which held him bound, Francesco Novella drove
the mUd friar forth. But his respite was only momentary.
There entered in the friar's place, Heads of the Ten and of
the Forty, followed by many other of&cials, and twenty
homicides. Though fighting to the last, Carrara was over-
powered, seized by the arms and legs, beaten about the face
and head, and eventually thrown to the grpund and strangled.
His two sons, Francesco iii and Jacopo, were done to death
by strangulation, but, supposedly because they did not desper-
ately resist, without the aggravations of cruelty imposed upon
their father.

Homo morto nan fa guerra.

The end of the three Carrarese was given out as resulting
from attacks of catarrh. This enabled their poor corpses to be
deposited in consecrated ground. The father was laid in San

200 THE DOGES OF VENICE

Stefano, the sons in San Giorgio Maggiore. It was sometimes
deemed advisable in public interests not to execute traitors
between the two columns of doom. But the people knew why
the deaths of the Paduans came opportunely, if they had not the
knowledge given them of how their dispatch was accomplished.
Dead men make no wars.

Following upon their condemnations came judgments upon
many Venetians, trusted servants of the State, with whose
patriotism and virtue Carrara had tampered or sought to
tamper. Under these judgments even Carlo Zeno, the Un-
conquerable, fell. Yet the worst fault of the great warrior
seems to have been that of secret parley with the all-too-strate-
gical Carrara. Zeno was sentenced to two years' incarceration.
It remained for Doge Steno to approve the Statutes of
Verona, as a city under his jurisdiction. This was done in
July 1405. It is remarkable that certain democratic elements
of the Veronese constitution were not eliminated by the
aristocratic Venetian ruler. The Republic was becoming
truly Imperial, and learning the art of ruling alien peoples
with due allowance for local institutions and racial idio-
syncrasies. On 4th January 1406 a gorgeous fete on the
Piazza celebrated the submission of Padua. Sixteen ambassa-
dors, chosen from the four great orders — knights, doctors,
silk-merchants and squires — came from the university city,
and the leading " doctor," afterwards a cardinal, presented
the gonfalon of Padua to Doge Steno. The Paduans were
ceremonially clad in scarlet, their servants having green
liveries, and they were accompanied by bands of music.
A little later arrived the deputation from Verona, also with
many followers and bands of music. The uniforms of these
were white. They rode upon horses caparisoned with white
trappings, almost to the steps of a platform erected in front
of St. Mark's, on which sat the Doge and his College (or Cabinet)
and the Senators. The Venetians, like the Veronese, were
aU attired in white. Dismounting, the Veronese formed into
a triple file — there were twenty-one of them — and advanced
towards the venerable Steno, carrjdng high the emblems of
their submission. Among the tokens were a blank sheet of
pure vellum, the keys of the three gates of Verona, the banner

PATRIOTS, PURISTS AND PROFLIGATES 201

of the People — a gold cross on a field of azure — and that of the
Commune — a silver cross on a red field. These were all laid
at the feet of the Doge, who quoted, with little enough applica-
tion, The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light ;
upon them hath light shined. The deputies then took the oath of
allegiance, which the Grand Chancellor of Venice administered,
exclaiming as he closed his missal, My soul doth magnify the
Lord. In exchange for the standards laid down. Doge Steno
presented to the Veronese the banners of Venice, and took
those of Verona to hang as trophies of the ducal rule on either
side of the High Altar of St. Mark.

The enunciation of texts, more or less applicable to the
business of the hour, was a ceremonial habit in the fourteenth
and fifteenth centuries that did not necessarily betoken any
particular piety in the quoter. Certainly Doge Steno's relations
to sacred things or, at least, to ecclesiastical affairs, seem to
have been determined more by political expediency than by
religious enthusiasm. He came out on the right side — ^that
is, on the side of France, Burgundy and England, as well as of
peace and reason — in his recognition of Pietro Filgari of Candia
(a Venetian subject, although Archbishop of Milan) as Pope
Alexander v. But then Steno's reasons for objecting to the
claims of Gregory xii (Angelo Corraro, another Venetian
subject) were the personal ones of Corraro having declined,
on the ground of unfitness, to make a Bishop of a nephew of the
Doge. However, Steno addressed the Senate with sufficient
arguments of disinterestedness to cause that body, after he had
retired, leaving his motion before them, to agree to the re-
cognition of Alexander v, by 69 votes to 48, thirteen of the
Senators having abstained from voting.

The whole story of Doge Michele Steno is shaped by his
personal character, and much of the story of Venice in his time
was moulded by his shortcomings as by his distinctive qualities.
On the whole, he did well for Venice and Venice did well
by him. The record of his Breve was that he gained dominion
over " beautiful Verona," and " also over Padua." In his
epitaph he is called Amator justitice, pacts et ubertatis. These
are good praises, and Steno, whatever the faults, the darings,
and the delinquencies of the man, was a good Doge.

CHAPTER XII
PEACE AND WAR IN COMPLEMENT

A.D. I414 TO 1457

IN the stories pendant to one another of Tommaso Mocenigo
and Francesco Foscari, we see the summit of ducal
power attained to.

Only in rare exceptions, ever afterwards, was character in
one Doge so strong as to exercise a noticeable influence,
whether for good or ill, on the aims and methods of adminis-
trative bodies, or on the thoughts and habits of nobles and
citizens.

It was otherwise with Doge Mocenigo. He truly voiced
some aspirations of his people ; inspired some views of the
signory ; wielded some forces of will 5 and intention in the
government. Mocenigo was a genuine lover of peace and
an unsparing critic of ^11 who held that political arguments
can be determined only by force. He had lived through all
the hardships and turmoils of the long war with Padua, and
it fell to his lot, as Doge, to pay off the huge debts contracted
during the campaign. For these causes, if for no others, he
strove from first to last to preserve the neutral attitude for
Venice on Italian questions. Wars on the Turks, the Greeks
and the Dalmatians were right enough — the inevitable tasks
of Imperial Venice. Under his rule the Venetians had their
first naval battle with the Turks, and gained a splendid victory
over them at Gallipoli. Resistance of a German Emperor's
interference with Venetian rights was also a policy no patriot-
Doge of the fifteenth century could follow weakly. So
Mocenigo's opposition to the Emperor Sigismund's appoint-
ment of Louis de Teck to the Patriarchate of Aquileia was

PEACE AND WAR IN COMPLEMENT 203

an armed opposition, and Pandolfo Malatesta, as Condottier-
General of the Venetian forces, drove the troops of Sigismund
from all their positions in north-east Italy, and reduced the
lordly de Teck to the condition of accepting an annuity and a
limited jurisdiction in the City of AquUeia and in some
smaller places, over which he had thought to reign omnipotent.
Istria and Dalmatia were also reconquered, and aU the towns
of the eastern shore of the Adriatic brought, one by one,
beneath the old dominion.

In Albania, in the Ionian Isles and in Greece, Mocenigo
received, as War-Lord, the submissions of the Lords of Corinth
and of Goritz, and the homage of these conquered princes
was no embarrassment to the peace-lover. Scutari's feudal
tribute of falcons and goshawks was a present that could not
be appreciated by a Doge always too much occupied with
treaties, negotiations and the general of&ce-work of his position,
to spare time for sport. But he sent the birds as peace
offerings to various princes who either performed the duties
of government in a more haphazard fashion than he did, or had
smaller interests and estates to manage.

Much of Mocenigo's time was certainly occupied with
approving and adjusting the constitutions of the many pro-
vinces and cities both east and west of the Adriatic that came
under his ducal sway. The exceeding care taken not to destroy
unnecessarily any local forms and customs of government,
but rather to promote a continuity of native arrangements
in subject-states, is evidence of the judicious and managing
nature of this Doge. Evidence of his character and designs
is also to be taken from his attitude towards both the Diike
of Milan and the Signory of Florence.

Another Visconti of ambition, craft and power had arisen in
Filippo-Maria, son of Giovanni-Galeazzo. With this viper,
Mocenigo cleverly associated the lion of St. Mark in a league
of defence against the Emperor Sigismund. The Florentines
objected to the junction. It suited them better to have an
aggressive state on the other side of Lombardy, and when the
power of Visconti wound itself, snake-like, around Tuscany,
and struck on Savona and Forli, the Government of Florence
obtained the intercession of Gonzaga,- Marquess of Mantua,

204 THE DOGES OF VENICE

in an endeavour to persuade Venice to a rupture with Milan,
and an alliance with the city of the Medici.

Doge Mocenigo replied to the Marquis of Mantua that the
matter was one of utmost gravity, and he would lay it before
the Senate. He contrived to let it He there for some time,
and whenever reference was made to it in any council under
his presidency, he delivered emphatic harangues full of retro-
spective accounts of how matters had come to their present
pass, together with prognostications of disasters to follow, if
Venice should provoke the enmity of Milan by making Florence
strong enough to hold her own.

Certainly Tommaso Mocenigo was a wordy and sententious
person, although his speeches, as recorded, must be elabora-
tions of the originals. We learn from them, however, the
character of his relations with the Doge who was to follow
him.

Francesco Foscari had recently been made a Procurator
of St. Mark, when the aged Mocenigo aimed at him the speech
which portrays for all time the natures of both men, as well as
the situation of Venetian politics in their time.

" Young Procurator," said Doge Mocenigo threateningly,
" what happened to Troy will happen to Florence and will
happen to you. By wars, the Trojans were weakened and
enslaved ; by wars Florence is destroying herself, and we shall
do the like if we take counsel with our young Procurator. It is
to the arts of peace that our city owes all her prosperity ; it is
to them she is indebted for her riches, the increase of her
population and her houses. Pisa aggrandized herself by
similar means and by her good government. She plunged
into war, impoverished herself, was lost. So it will be with us
if we listen to our young Procurator. Let me recommend
you, Ser Francesco, not to come to hasty conclusions on this
matter. Remember that Florence does not use the port of
Venice either by land or water. Her sea is removed from our
boundaries five days' journey. Our passes are the Veronese.
The Duke of Milan is the Prince whose territory is contiguous
to our own ; and he must be kept in check, since it is scarcely
a day's march to his City of Brescia, which lies close to Verona
and Cremona. Genoa, again, has sufficient maritime power
under the Ducal rule to do us harm ; with her we should
endeavour to stand well ; and if the Genoese are guilty of
any, excesses, we shall have justice on our side, and we can

PEACE AND WAR IN COMPLEMENT 205

defend otirselves with fairness against both them and the
Duke. The mountains of the Veronese are our barrier against
Visconti."

The parts of Mocenigo's speech which followed the more
personal harangue are more informing of the financial con-
dition of Venice at the time, and of the rich result of Mocenigo's
method of rule ; but even the statistics put forward " by
virtue of a resolution in Council," have the tone of the man
whose voice supposedly announced them and who recognized
so clearly in the " young Procurator " the leader of the party
which, by the law of complements, was bound to come to
power when his own had had its day.

The statistics of Doge Mocenigo's speech are the most
elaborate and minute for that period in the existing records
of any country. They show that the volume of trade with
Milan was far greater than that with any other Italian state,
whUe the commerce with all Lombardy was worth the enormous
sum of 28,000,000 ducats a year.

" Our Bankers report that, on the whole, the Milanese
pay us annually 1,612,000 ducats," announced the subtle
Mocenigo. " Prythee tell me if you do not think that this is a
fine and noble garden, which costs Venice nothing ? "

More statistics followed and more queries as to whether
Venice had not in many quarters a very fine garden ? Then
with some recapitulation and with not a little confidence and
pride, the aged Doge concluded : —

" My Lords, you see how year by year, in consequence of the
troubles of Italy, families migrate hither, and help to swell our
population. If the Florentines give themselves to the Duke,
so much the worse for them who interfere ! Justice is with us.
They have spent everything and are in debt. We have a
capital of 10,000,000, on which we gain 4,000,000. Live in
peace, fear nothing and trust not the Florentines ! Your
college has desired to be informed of the revenue which we
derive from the territory between Verona and Mestre ; it is
464,000 ducats. On the other hand, it has desired to know
the expenditure. But with the best peace in the world, the
expenditure must go far to swallow up the receipts. My
Lords, I am not saying these things to glorify myself. But
in truth, you hear our captains at Aignesmortes and in

2o6 THE DOGES OF VENICE

Flanders, our ambassadors, our consuls, our merchants,
telling you with one accord : My Lords of Venice, you have a
virtuous and good prince who has kept you in tranquillity ;
you are the only Power which traverses the sea and the land ;
you are the fountain of trade and the purveyors of the world ;
you are welcome everywhere ! On the other hand, around you
is nought but war, flame, and tribulation. Italy, France,
Spain, Catalonia, England, Burgundy, Persia, Russia,
Hungary, all are at war. We wage battle against the Infidels
only ; and great are the praise and glory which we reap.
So long as I live, my Lords, I will maintain those principles
which I have hitherto followed, and which consist in living at
peace ! "

The party favouring the Florentines and opposing peace —
Foscari's party — was undoubtedly a strong one, but the oration
of Mocenigo carried the assembly in which it was delivered,
and the Signory was instructed to thank the Florentine
government for its offers, and to regret that they could not be
accepted, since " the federation with the Duke was concluded
with an anxious regard to the common safety of Italy."

Mocenigo was at this time in his eightieth year and severely
indisposed, yet memorable words of his were yet to be spoken.

It was on his death-bed, with the chief senators and principal
officers of his government gathered round him, that the
venerable Doge delivered his last statements, his last cautions
and his last forecasts.

" My Lords," he said, or probably read from notes held in a
trembling fist, " from the infirm state in which I find myself,
I judge that I am drawing near the close of my career ; and
the obligations under which I lie to a country which has not
only bred me, but has permitted me to attain such lofty
prominence and has showered upon me so many honours, have
prompted me to call you together around me, in order that I
may commend to your care this Christian city and persuade
you to live in concord with your neighbours, and to preserve
this city, as I have done, to the best of my ability. In my
time, 4,000,000 of the Public Debt have been paid off, though
6,000,000 more remain, the latter sum being contracted for
the wars of Padua, Vicenza and Verona. We have regularly
paid the half-yearly interest on the Funds and the Salaries
of >the Public Offices. Our city at present sends abroad for
purposes of trade in various parts of the world 10,000,000 a

PEACE AND WAR IN COMPLEMENT 207

year, of which the interest is not less than 2,000,000. In this
City there are 3000 small vessels which carry 17,000 seamen ;
300 large ships carrying 8000 seamen, and every year 45
galleys and dromons are launched for the protection of
commerce, which have employed in building, 11,000 mariners,
3000 carpenters, 3000 caulkers. Of silk-cloth weavers, there
are 3000 ; of manufacturers of fustian, 16,000. The houses
are estimated as worth 7,050,000 ducats. Their rents amount
to 150,000. We find 1000 gentlemen with incomes varying
between 700 and 4000 ducats a year. If you continue in this
way you will multiply more and more and will become masters
both of all wealth and all Christendom. Everyone will fear
you. But I beseech you, avoid as you would fire, seizing what
belongs to others and engaging in unjust wars, for in such
wars God wiU not support princes ! "

Then, after reading more statistics regarding the naval,
scientific and commercial wealth of the Republic, Mocenigo
delivered another exhortation.

" It behoves you," he said, " to exercise extreme caution
in the choice of my successor, because through him the Republic
may receive much good and much fame."

This is testimony incontrovertible to the power and |in-
fluence still to be exercised personally by a Doge of character.

Reviewing the qualities of six nobles whose names were
already in men's minds as candidates for the Dogeship,
Mocenigo approved them all as " good men." But there was
another who had to be referred to. Those who inclined to
Francesco Foscari did not sufficiently know his deceitful,
proud and superficial character. " Ahbazia molto e poco
stringe." If Foscari were made the Doge, Venice would*be
continually at war. Upon the Venetians would terrible
judgments fall.

It was the mission of Francesco Foscari, as it has been the
mission in time of other scions of noble families, to rebuild the
ancient fame and fortune of his house. His brilliant gifts and
strong political capacities had early marked him out for a
career. By reason of a quarrel between his uncle Paolo
Foscari, Bishop of Venice, and Doge Andrea Contarini, his
father, as weU as the offending prelate, had found it wiser and
more comfortable to live abroad for a time. But Francesco,

2o8 THE DOGES OF VENICE

if not left at home with his grandfather, seems early to have
returned and to have given himself to his country's service.
He became a Chief of the Forty in his twenty-ninth year, 1401,
and subsequently was made, at different times and recurrently,
an Ambassador, a Chief of the Ten, an Avogador of the Com-
mune and an Inquisitor of the Ten. The candidate who most
closely contested with him the supreme office, was Messer
Pietro Loredano, one of the six men proclaimed as " good" by
Doge Mocenigo. The success of Foscari Was won by the
fitness and force of his speech in the Council of the Forty-One,
and by Loredano' s ill-judged and hot-headed defence of his
own personal qualifications, over which Foscari chuckled, while
he thought out a most able and well-reasoned address.

For two centuries and a half — since 1173 — it had been the
custom to proclaim the newly-elected Doge to the populace
gathered in Arengo on the Piazza, or in San Marco, in the
words : " This is your Doge, an it please you." But in the
course of correcting the Promissione of Francesco Foscari, some
humorist sage drily remarked, " And if it should not please
them, what then ? " The consequence was of course unthink-
able to the aristocrats who were at the moment inserting in the
Oath a provision that " all and every such resolutions as shall
have been taken heretofore in the Great Council, in which it is
found recited that they are put in Arengo, likewise such as
shall have been taken during this vacancy of the Crown, shall
upon their adoption by the Great Council acquire the same
force and validity as if they had been published in Arengo."
It was further ruled that " these resolutions shall not again at
arty future time be published in Arengo, and the Arengo
shall not be convoked, save at the election of our lord the Doge,
when it shall be summoned and the said election be promul-
gated according to practice."

The possibility of the Arengo taking exception to any
decision of the Great Council was too alarming to be con-
templated. So another ruling was agreed to, by virtue of
which, on the morning of i6th April 1423, Albano Badoer, the
eldest of the Forty-One, announced to the popular assembly,
" This is your Doge."

By another well-considered yet fiery speech, delivered from

FRANCESCO FOSCARI

FROM A BUST 1\ IHE MUSEO ARCHEOI-OGICO, VENICE

PEACE AND WAR IN COMPLEMENT 209

a balcony of the palace later in the day, Foscari called forth
cries of Sia ! Sia ! which signified that his election was well-
pleasing to the people. But the joy-bells of his accession were
the knell of all popular rights in Venice. They rang also the
curfew of the day of ducal glory.

The " Young Procurator " was fifty years old when he
mounted the throne. We read that he had cunningly employed
his opportunities as Procurator to buy himself friends with
the " mammon of unrighteousness." Finding a considerable
hoard in the treasury of St. Mark, he applied it — no doubt by
all proper and legal methods — to the assistance of members of
noted famiUes in reduced circumstances and to the portioning
of marriageable daughters of the poor nobility. It may have
been — as old Sanudo believed — that these doles were given by
Foscari with the sole view of securing his own advancement.
But Foscari was a man whose instinct was to spend rather than
to save, although he always sought value for payment, and
certainly believed that peace was a commodity a State might
too dearly purchase.

In this view he was, of course, in direct opposition to
Mocenigo, and because of it, rather than from any native
bellicosity, he had brought down on himself the strictures of his
predecessor. Hostilities in Italy in the fifteenth century were,
in any case, more affairs of expense than of danger. The
navies, both of war and trade, sapped Venice of warm young
blood, and rendered her the poorer in will, thought and sinew.
But the armies drew from the State little wealth beyond the
minted coin with which the hired troops and condottier-
captains were paid. Some hand-to-hand fighting, some
charges of cavalry and some exchanges of cannon shots were
undoubtedly among the episodes of camp-life for the soldiers
of the renowned Carmagnola who, in the reign of Francesco
Foscari, compensated himself for loss of service under the Viper
of Milan by carrying to a certain victory the Lion of St. Mark.
But the successes of even such an illustrious general and genius
among fighting-men were achieved more by methods of con-
trivance, deception and statesmanship, than by force of arms
and deeds of military daring.

That it was on questions of economy and trade, rather than in
14

210 THE DOGES OF VENICE

political views and humane considerations, that Mocenigo
differed from Foscari, is shown in the speech made by the later
Doge at a time when the Florentines had recently suffered some
decisive defeats by the Milanese, and were having their Tuscan
liberties forcibly wrested from them by Visconti's generals.

" Many resolutions have been proposed. Conscript Fathers,
which, being of a contradictory kind, breed confusion and tend
to mislead our judgment. Decipimur specie recti. There are
two things which in this our Republic are thought exceedingly
pleasant, but which, nevertheless, have involved states often-
times in troubles : they are peace and frugality. While men
cling to repose too fondly and show themselves too greedy
of gain, grave perils beset their path. Of this we have ex-
amples numerous enough in ancient and in modern days.
Have we not one under our own eyes ? Behold the fate of the
Florentines who having neglected to bridle the power of Filippo-
Maria, while it was stiU insignificant, are now in imminent
danger of falling under a Milanese yoke ? But what am I
saying ? Is it not our place to help the distressed and jeopar-
dized Power ? Shall we suffer Filippo to lay a finger on the
liberties of Florence ? That insensate tyrant (if he be not
checked) will be pursuing his conquests unmolested, until he
has overrun the whole Peninsula ; and when he has got
Florence, he will attack us next. That is the grand object
of his machinations ; that is his whole thought. Therefore
I have wondered much when I have heard it said that it is not
for us to interfere in this matter. Really, most excellent
Fathers, I am of decided opinion that our interest and duty
lie in that very direction ; I am of opinion that the Signory
ought not to remain a passive spectator of the present contest.
I must remind you that the Florentines, though weakened
indeed, are not so utterly exhausted that they cannot furnish
their share of troops. By Carmagnola we have been assured
that ■ the power of the Duke is not so great as it is reputed to
be ' ; and under such a leader who, even in our age so prolific
in military talent, has no equal, we may sanguinely look for a
prosperous result and for an extension of frontier. All these con-
siderations are calculated to induce us to engage in the war —
a necessary war, I must call it — against the common foe who,
contemning all laws, himian and divine, appropriates by
fraudulent and nefarious arts the possessions of his neighbours,
and who is aspiring to the throne of Italy. For such reasons,
I repeat, let us imdertake the struggle with good courage ; and
in crushing this enemy, let us secure for the Peninsula the bless-
ing of tranquillity."

PEACE AND WAR IN COMPLEMENT 211

This was undoubtedly a war speech, and, as we have
ground to beUeve, delivered with that persuasiveness of voice,
manner and style which makes an oration truly inflammatory.
Yet Foscari had been two years Doge before he counted it
wisdom to make such an address. Almost as stoutly as his
predecessor, and not only because of his predecessor's stoutness^
Foscari had resisted the pleas and importunities of the Floren-
tines, until the actions of Visconti became a true encroachment
on Italian hberties, and it was found that neither an alliance
with Milan against the interferences of Sigismund, nor the
neutrality of Venice in the strife between MUan and Florence,
could help the general peace of Italy or aid the tranquilUty and
the prosperity of the State of Venice.

Yet Foscari had been so far warlike and so far economical
as to equip his country for defence and aggression, while peace
yet remained unbroken.

In March 1425 he took into the service of the Republic
the redoubtable Carmagnola. One Andrea Contarini had been
the agent in the delicate negotiations between the Doge and
the Milanese, and it is curious to see the name of Contarini in
close connection with that of Foscari. But the feuds between
Doge Francesco Foscari's uncle and father and the Doge
Andrea Contarini had been fully appeeised what time the
nephew of the recalcitrant Bishop Foscari attained to the
ducal office. The services of the later Andrea Contarini to
Doge Foscari were indeed preliminary to a closer relation to
follow between the two families of distinction. But before
the splendid nuptials of Jacopo Foscari and Lucrezia Contarini
were celebrated in Venice, two disasters happened which, if
they do not prove the vanity of aU things human, show at
least from what vain instincts human beings court their doom.
On the nth March 1430, the Doge, in accordance with a
provision of the coronation oath, inserted at his election, held
his monthly reception of the judges, for the purpose of ex-
horting them to fulfil their duties honourably and without
respect of persons. Into that reception, with or without leave,
came Andrea Contarini, and he, choosing cynically the occasion
of Foscari's virtuous admonishment of others, suddenly
assaulted his prince with a knife, giving him several slashes

212 THE DOGES OF VENICE

in the face. Contarini had not been rewarded for his services
in the matter of the engagement of Carmagnola, as he hkd
expected to be. He wanted to be made Captain of the Gulf,
and not obtaining the post designed a vendetta on the Doge.
His design, presumably, was unknown to Foscari ; unless, being
something of a desperado himself, he chose to treat the threats
of his erstwhile spy and servitor with contempt. If so, the
fury of the assailant was probably doubled. Some later
chroniclers have charitably expressed the belief that this
Contarini was mad. But the passing of the sentence of
having his hand cut off, by judges who must have actually
witnessed his crime, shows that the act did not impress ob-
servers of it as that of a lunatic. Yet who shall say that aU
crime, and even aU vanity, are not madness !

The way of Carmagnola, for all his craft, intelligence and
quick perception, was it not a mad way ?

The cow-herd who owed his enlistment as a soldier to what
we in the world call Chance, was indebted for all following
successes to his own fiery will, his stout right arm, and —
because he was an Italian of the century of Machiavelli — to
his extraordinarily suggle mind and absolute wiant of moral
principle. Yet this same suppleness and lack of honesty
brought him to his early doom. For long, the Signory of
Venice bore with his shifts, and affected to believe the excuses
he gave for refraining to follow up attacks and missing his
opportunities of dealing real punishment on the enemies of
Venice. The brilliancy of his exploits, when he chose to put
his troops to feats of arms and strategy, or to direct forces of
insinuation and subtlety against the Viper of Milan, were
allowed to atone for neglects and prevarications with which
the Signory dared not charge him. But the end had to come.
It was brought about with all the cunning, even all the theatri-
cality, that is popularly attributed to actions of the Venetian
government ; in particular to the machinations of the dreaded
and powerful Ten.

The drama of the downfall of His Magnificence Count
Carmagnola began with the dispatch from Venice of the
trusty secretary of the Chiefs of the Ten. This officer bore
a message from the Doge to tlie Captain-General, asking him

PEACE AND WAR IN COMPLEMENT 213

to come at once to Venice to meet the Lord of Mantua, a
near and jealous neighbour of the Tyrant of Milan, who was
disposed, for the moment, to be friendly with Venice. Car-
magnola, who knew as much about things, both geographical
and political, on the farther as on the hither side of the
river Po, could make invaluable contributions, so the secretary
was instructed to assure him, to the discussions about to
take place. Together with the most detailed suggestions
concerning modes of persuasion to be used with Carmagnola,
the secretary had also instructions to order the subordinate
captains to use force, should their chief refuse the ducal
invitation. In such an event, he was to be escorted under guard
to the capital. But Carmagnola the faithless did not doubt
the faith of his Serene Prince. He set out for Venice without
any urging. At Padua he was met by an escort of honour
under Captain Federigo Contarini, with whom he reached
Venice on 7th AprU 143a. Eight nobles received him at the
entrance to the palace, and with every mark of respect ushered
him and his following inside. The door was then shut, and
Carmagnola waited for the ceremony of his presentation to
the Doge. But there came only Leonardo Mocenigo, a high
official, who said that His Serenity was indisposed, but would
see his guest to-morrow. A little dashed, Carmagnola turned
impetuously to leave the palace and go to his own house.
The eight nobles formed a guard about him. They were
solemn, courteous, bland.

" My Lord Count, this way," they said, indicating the
passage leading to the prisons.

" That is not the way," protested the soldier, bluntly, and

made for the door that opened on to the quay to which his

gondola was moored.

" But yes, this is the way," the men of dignity replied.

And then appeared the hired bullies — sbirri — of Venetian

justice, and Carmagnola knew that he was trapped.

" I am lost," he cried, and passed beneath the portal of

his fate.

Thus was a traitor to Venice traitorously ensnared, and

the honourable name of Foscari dishonourably used. Yet

the Doge could not have been greatly ashamed of the

214 THE DOGES OF VENICE

success of a manoeuvre which was of a kind often employed
— and proudly — by Carmagnola himself. Thieves must be
caught by thievish means.

A truer shame to one of Francesco Foscari's daring, will
and penetration, was the existence of a plot about him in
the home city, of which, with his eyes fixed on far colonies,
he had failed to perceive the beginnings.

It was about three years after the attempt upon his life,
that discovery was made of a league, to which at least thirty-
seven members of the nobility belonged, and by which, through
a system of in-and-out balloting for one another, they en-
deavoured to obtain all the dignities and offices of the govern-
ment for themselves. Denounced by the Ten, the delinquents
were sentenced to banishment from Venice for terms of from
one to five years, with exclusions of varying periods from
the Grand Council, or from the offices they had nefariously
obtained. The Ten made the punishments the more thorough
by publishing rigorous laws, menacing all who dared to join
conventicles or to make rules to the prejudice of existing in-
stitutions and ordinances.

The triumph of the government was absolute, but it was
a wound to the soul of Foscari that the battle had been
necessary. He was a conquering Doge who cared more for
moral triumphs than for material ones. The acquisition of
three fair provinces in Lombardy could not salve his grief
over the length of the wars, the fierceness of the plague, and
the narrowness of the exchequer. Partly from disgust, and
partly, perhaps, to test his own popularity with the Council
and the Ten, Foscari (a.d. 1433) proposed to resign the crown.
But the law concerning ducal abdications, fixed by the Pro-
missione of Doge Marino Morosini nearly two hundred years
earlier, required the acquiescence of a certain number of
Councillors in any desire of a Doge to lay aside his office,
and at this time the requisite number was so far short as to
prevent the proposal from being even discussed in the Grand
Council. So Francesco Foscari continued to reign ; moreover,
to reign victoriously, and to taste fruits of his ambitions.

Not only were his counsels and protections as Doge of
Venice invited by such diverse supplicants as the Pope of

PEACE AND WAR IN COMPLEMENT 215

Rome and the Republic of Genoa, but he had the poHtical
satisfaction of bringing to the fate of decapitation " between
the two columns " the very last of the Carrarese, who had
been incited by the last Visconti to retake Padua. Foscari
had also the more personal gratification of severally patroniz-
ing and reprimanding two men of notable aspirations and
attainments whose names sound down the centuries fatefuUy.

Cosimo di Medici, banker, book-collector, diplomatist
and orator, being sentenced by mistrustful fellow-citizens to
banishment from Florence for ten years, became the honoured
guest of the Republic at Padua, at Treviso, at Vicenza and
in Friuli ; while Francesco Sf orza, Condottier-General of the
Florentine army, recently created by the Pope for services,
Conte delta Marca d'Ancona and Gonfalonier of the churchy
was refused a stipend he claimed of the Republic and pre-
vented from returning into Tuscany, because, in his endeavour
to subdue Lucca to Florence and thus make himself a more
formidable foe to Visconti, he had not conducted his campaign
in the manner dictated by Venice.

Thus did the government of the lagoon islands exercise
Imperial power, although considerably embarrassed by its
Empire. Foscari could relinquish nothing that had been
gained, and it was determined in his councils to seek in-
vestiture of his many hardly-held dominions on the mainland,
from the hand of the living representative of the line of German
Emperors, in whom it was a dream of the age to see the
Roman Caesars restored. It had been a promise made by
Sigismund, upon the formation of the league with the Venetians
against MUan, that he would give the Venetian Signory a
perpetual title to all the lands, castles and other places
possessed by them within the Imperial domain, and to this
gift he had pledged himself and all successive and future
Roman Emperors !

There was, however, one obstacle to the performance of
the promise in the thorough manner desired by Venice. An
heir of the Scaligeri still lived, and was a refugee at the Court of
Sigismund. The claims of the descent of Brumoro della Scala
were purchased by Venice for a life-income and, upon the con-
clusion of this bargain, the solemn ceremony of investiture was

2i6 THE DOGES OF VENICE

held at Prague, when Marco Dandolo for Venice did personal
homage to the Emperor Sigismund, on the i6th of August 1437.
In the following November the Doge gave public notice
in Venice of the ceremony and its pledges. At the same time,
an undertaking was sent to the Imperial Chancellor to pay
him ten thousand ducats, in instalments of one thousand a
month. The oath was never renewed. But, in his time,
Francesco Foscari was undoubted Lord of many domains in
north Italy that had not before been subject to Venice, and
was, moreover, coamted as an ally rather than a vassal of the
western Caesar.

In the same way, when John Paleologus, Emperor of the
East, came to the Lido in February 1438, Foscari conferred
with him as with a fellow-sovereign, although his first greeting
had to be obsequious to the extent of kneeling and standing
bareheaded before a monarch seated and wearing his cap of
estate. With the Emperor was his brother Demetrius,
Despot of the Morea, the Patriarch and many prelates and
lords of Greece The main object of the visit of these dignitaries
was to implore the help of Christian Kings, Princes and
Governors against the overwhelming forces of the Turks.
Incidentally, they were ready to abandon the special Greek
tenets of their religion, and to provide for the union of the
eastern and western churches. Paleologus was in desperate
case and needed arms and men at any cost.

It had been a sight to see Doge Foscari sitting on the left
hand of the Emperor, on a chair of equal state, aboard the
ship that had brought the august visitor from the eastern
isles, whUe brother Demetrius, on the right hand, occupied
a lower place. But it was a spectacle of unimaginable pomp,
so Venetian historians teU us, to behold the Doge with the
Senators and some of the Chiefs of Councils, upon the following
day, as they sat in the stem of the Bucintoro, beneath a canopy
of rose-coloured silk with the Lion of St. Mark and other
emblems embroidered thereon in gold. In this state they
passed to fetch the Monarch to the capital ; and there darted
before, circled round, and followed after the princely vessel,
many-oared galleys and other boats and barges, carrying
nobles and officers of state. Colours flew and music played.

PEACE AND WAR IN COMPLEMENT 217

The rowers and sailors of the numerous and picturesque craft
wore ccats embroidered in leaf designs in gold and hinetti
adorned in front with the banner of St. Mark, and at the back
with the Imperial eagle. The cross-bowmen were also most
fancifully attired, while the Lord High Admiral, in a splendid
costume of cloth of gold, carried a sceptre, and was closely
attended by no less than four grand personages.

Once more the Doge went aboard the Emperor's ship ;
once more he bowed low, and took his seat upon the left
hand of the Imperial visitor, but this time he sat upon the
same level with Demetrius, in order, so a Greek account care-
fully explained, that he might converse more familiarly with
the Despot. At last, with long trains of boats following, the
Emperor was conducted, presumably on the Bucintoro, to
Venice and taken on a round of sight-seeing. It was all
ammirabile ammirdbilissima and worthy of a thousand praises ;
so, at least, thought the Greeks. As for the Venetians, they
behaved in a truly Venetian way. An occasion for a demon-
stration was never let slip. On the Rialto bridge an excited
throng welcomed the Imperial guest with gilded banners,
trumpet-bleists and loud shouts of applause. So from one
gorgeous or moving sight to another the Emperor passed,
until at six o'clock in the evening he repaired to the palace of
the Marquis of Ferrara. There he spent some weeks, chiefly
occupied in writing letters of invitation to the Council to be held
by the Pope at Ferrara.

Yet the time was to come, and all too quickly, when
Francesco Foscari could no longer be roused to make that
goodly show of greatness he had hitherto so assiduously
fostered. For all his fond ambitions, fair visions, and high
hopes, this Doge had always been, and strongly, a family
man. At the time of his elevation to the Dogeship, there was
an objection that he had been twice married, and had already
abvmdance of children, while his young wife was likely to bring
him yearly additions to his family. Whether this foreboding
were justified of subsequent events or not, it is certain that
four sons and five daughters had already been born to Foscari
at the time of his election, and that of these at least one son —
Jacopo— was.the child of the Dogaressa, Marina Nani. We do

2i8 THE DOGES OF VENICE

not know if more of the original nine children were also Marina's,
but we do know that in less than twenty years from his
enthronement only one son remained to Foscari. This was
Jacopo — " child of many prayers " — upon whose brilliant
marriage to Lucrezia Contarini, in 1441, had fallen the shadow
of an illness ending in death, of a younger brother. Deeper
shadows were to fall on the feted and caressed young couple.
Worse endings than death were to come to their hopes and joys.
In the tourneys and other revels on the Piazza and in the
private and state palaces of the Doge, which followed the day
of many gorgeous processions on horseback and afloat, that
made Jacopo and Lucrezia one, there broke his lance and
stepped his measure the famous Francesco Sforza, who waited
himself to be made a bridegroom with Bianca, natural
daughter of the ruling Visconti, for his bride. To Sforza,
Bianca had long been promised, but always with reservations
and conditions that kept him either dangling and disarmed, or
incited him to attacks on Milan which gave Visconti an excuse
for hurling his forces against Sforza's employers or allies.
Because Venice alone of neighbouring states could curb the
designs of the Prince of Milan and reduce his insolence to terms,
it was policy with Sforza to disport himself at the marriage of
Jacopo Foscari and to show himself valiant in the jousts that
celebrated it. Undoubtedly a present from this Condottier
was among the number showered upon Jacopo and Lucrezia,
and at a more advanced stage of Sforza's political friendship
with Venice, he gave gifts to Jacopo Foscari of a kind forbidden
to be received by any near relative of the Doge. These treasures
in coin and plate were conveyed to the palace surreptitiously,
and quickly hidden away there. But the practices of Jacopo
with neighbouring and rival princes, as also with some home
suitors for ducal kindness, were discovered, and he had to fly.
He had been careless, idle, a featherer of his own nest, but,
while he feared the promptitude of Venetian justice, he knew
that sentences not instantly enforced were oftentimes reversed,
and he trusted to his luck ! So, although the Council of the
Twenty-One (the Ten had been specially augmented for this
very serious business by another Ten, and by Francesco
Loredano as Chief) pronounced on him the doom of banishment

PEACE AND WAR IN COMPLEMENT 219

from out the domain of the Republic, to Nauplia in Roumania,
Jacopo remained in Trieste, where he had first taken refuge.
He was too ill to go farther, so it was given out.

Meanwhile search was made in Venice both for those from
whom Jacopo had received gifts, and for others who had been
bribed with him, but for whose escape, although they were his
own servants, he had not provided. To the former the
douceurs had to be returned. To the latter, varying terms
of banishment with deprivations of offices and rights were
apportioned. Then the galley Trevisana was specially com-
missioned in a letter beginning " Nos Franciscus Foscan''
to sail to Trieste whence, after waiting upon Jacopo's con-
venience for eight days, it was to transport the son of Fran-
cesco Foscari to Mondone. From Mondone, Jacopo was to
proceed in a month's time to the place of his banishment. It
was on February 25, 1445, that the Trevisana sailed. On the
3rd of March the Dogaressa, by the voice of the Doge, appealed
to the Council for licence to repair to Trieste, once more to
embrace her son before he departed into exile. Marina Nani
Foscari was refused a favour that should not have been granted
to another mother of a banned conspirator against the State.
Yet something more than the wish must have been father to the
thought in Doge and Dogaressa, that their plea would be granted .
It must have been that in matters less alarming to the govern-
ment or less publicly bruited, the Foscari exercised a personal
influence. In any case, Jacopo, their son, believed that he had
protection in his parents' rank and personal fame. He paid no
heed to the injunctions delivered by the Trevisana, and the
special Council of Twenty-One becoming deeply affronted by his
resistance, implored the Doge to assert his authority as father
and prince, to induce his son to obey the decrees of the Junta.
But neither pressure nor persuasion routed the light-minded
obstinacy of the Doge's son, and on 7th April 1445 the Council
confirmed their previous sentence by confiscating all his
possessions and decreeing further that no one might, at any
time, make a suit for grace in his favour.

Yet nothing was really done against Jacopo himself, and he
remained five months at Treviso under plea of being kept there
by ill-health. So far from being evil-intentioned and cruel in

230 THE DOGES OF VENICE

the matter, as has been commonly said, the Council, at the end
of these five months, overlooked the defiances of their authority,
and listened to a proposition of four of their number that,
considering the infirm state of health of the said Jacopo, and
that, as in cases unforeseen and fortuitous for which it is
impossible to provide, it is in accordance with all laws, equity,
justice and humanity to succour all mankind and not to oppose
abitrary judgments to the divine will and disposition, it had
become their duty, " in the name of Jesus Christ, to accept the
excuse of the said Jacopo Foscari and to hold for legitimate and
honest the motive that impeded him from repairing to the place
of his confinement." This motion was carried by fifteen votes,
so it came about that within two years from the passing of the
fierce sentences on the conspirators against Venetian integrity,
it was permitted to the arch-offender to go to the Trevisan
instead of to Roumania, there to live as a country gentleman,
provided that he did not break bounds and return to Venice.
The still later discovery of the actual box containing the 2040
ducats and the plate known to have been the bribe of Sforza,
led to no modification of the grace accorded, and in September
1447 the Doge himself presented to the Council a touching
appeal in his son's favour.

Pleading the unhappiness of his old age and the torment of
not being able to do what he ought and what he wished to do
for the Republic, and, more than all, of finding himself deprived
of the only son that remained to him in the world, and re-
presenting the pitiful state of the same Jacopo, who with his
wife, children, nurse and other servants, were victims of the
fever raging at Mestre, he implored that his unhappy son should
be allowed to return to his country.

The Council received his supplication, and having con-
sidered the need of the present time to have a prince with a
mind free and serene to devote to the service of the Republic,
which thing must be impeded for their Doge by the knowledge
of the sufferings of his son in body and in mind, and having
considered also the gentle humanity of the Government and
the worthiness of the Doge, " it was conceded that Jacopo
was free to return to Venice."

Another three years followed the three of his banishment.

PEACE AND WAR IN COMPLEMENT 221

How they were spent by the reinstated one no record exists to
tell us. His words and ways could not, however, have been
always circumspect, since they did not place him above sus-
picion of a crime of conspiracy and violence.

On the evening of 5th November 1450, Ermolao Donato,
a senator, illustrious by birth and by worthy terms of magis-
tracy and ambassadorship, was assassinated as he came from
the Ducal Palace to return to his own house at Santa Maria
Formosa. Although the Council of the Ten met the next day,
and, because of the gravity of the facts, again demanded an
addition to their numbers, and having obtained it ordered a
most diligent search for the culprit and promised a large reward
for his discovery, no one was arrested. But Donato had been a
Chief of the Ten at the time of the first condemnation of Jacopo
Foscari, and there had been later signs of ill-f eehng between the
two. Besides, on the day of the murder, one Oliviero, a servant
of Jacopo, was seen to linger on the Piazza as if he awaited
some one, and then to enter the courtyard of the Ducal Palace
about the hour at which the Pregadi '- were wont to leave, and
this servant being met going back to Mestre, on the day after the
assassination, related to an acquaintance he encountered, aU the
circumstances of Dandolo's death on the evening before. The
historian, Romanin, has pointed out that there was nothing
really extraordinary in Oliviero having full knowledge of a
crime committed the evening before in Venice, and that if he
had been implicated he would have been more hkely to have
hidden than vaunted his knowledge of it. But there were
reasons — such trifling, thistle-down reasons as seem important
only at times of much suspicion — that made the Ten take a
grave view of Ohviero's wayside utterances, and, in any case,
there was brought to the Council two months after the tragedy,
a denunciation of Jacopo Foscari and some others, which resulted
in their arrest. All proofs against the lesser prisoners being
lacking, they were released before very long, but suspicions only
accumulating on Foscari's head, the plea of a councillor that
his denunciation had been brought about by desire of the re-
ward, and not by a knowledge of facts, was not accepted. On
the contrary, the Cabinet was charged to prosecute the researches

1 Members of the Senate.

222 THE DOGES OF VENICE

more thoroughly. Already special facility had been given to a
junta to arrest and examine any individual it seemed opportune
to question. These inquisitors proceeded first to interrogate
Andrea Donato, brother of the victim, as to whether he had
ever heard words or become acquainted with facts which gave
more grounds for the suspicion against Foscari. The only fact
elicited was that the dying man said just before he breathed his
last on the second day from that of the attack on him, that he
pardoned his unknown slayer. Andrea, however, had nothing
to add to this singularly indefinite testimony, and an attempt to
incriminate Foscari by words out of his own mouth also resulted
negatively. But the inquisitors were not to be daunted. Em-
powered to obtain a conviction, their labours culminated in the
announcement on the 26th of March 1451, that " by testimony
and writings Jacopo Foscari had been proved truly guilty of
the assassination of Ermolao Donato, although on account of
the weakness of his body and of some words of incantation used
by him, it had not been possible to obtain from his mouth the
truth that had been revealed by the said writings and testimony,
he having only murmured imintelligible words between his
teeth while under the torments of the rope."

Poor Jacopo was undoubtedly tortured, but his mutterings
as his reticences may be reckoned rather as evidences of bodily
weakness than as invocations of diabolic power. Well or ill,
he was condemned at last to imprisonment on the Island of
Crete, and upon all concerned was laid the obligation of secrecy.
It was forbidden to his judges to speak to anyone of the case.
Above aU, silence as to the names of his accusers was enjoined
under penalties of death. Yet the name of one who had
denounced him — Antonio Venier — seems to have been generally
known, perhaps because he had himself loudly voiced his
accusations, and this nobleman, as the Council styled him, was
rewarded with a yearly payment of two hundred ducats to
descend to his heirs, and with a licence to carry arms himself
and to arm three of his retainers. Jacopo's servant Oliviero
was banished for ever from the domain of Venice, and Jacopo
himself given no opportunity this time to escape to Trieste
or any other place. On the evening of March 29th, the
Signori di notte arrived with their special attendants at the

PEACE AND WAR IN COMPLEMENT 223

palace and led out the son of the Doge Foscari to their barge.
In this he was transferred to the ship of a trusty citizen which
sailed the same evening for Candia.

The crime for which Jacopo Foscari was a second time
banished was not certainly proved against him. Had it been,
a sentence of capital punishment must have been passed. For
many lightnesses and treacheries Jacopo had drawn down upon
himself the condemnation of honest men, so a sentence of
banishment to an island, from which it was thought he could
work but little harm against the State, and where he might
live in comparative freedom and comfort, seemed to be the
only sentence to meet the needs of the case, and to save the
Council from the accusation of favouring the Doge's son.

For five years Jacopo remained in Candia, but what had
happened on Rialto occurred again on the eastern island.
Jacopo could not accept the sentences of Venetian law. He
cotdd not be a patriot. He must ever fidget, plot and plan
for personal liberty, which meant for him liberty to live
idly and irresponsibly ; to get wealth as he chose ; to indulge
himself as he would. He wished no harm to Venice, and
probably could not understand that his flighty ways and
flippant speech were a bane to his country.

Suspicion fell on him of corresponding with the Duke of
Milan at a time of peace, with the object of gaining his
intercession; an act notoriously contrary to the laws of the
Republic. He did try to negotiate with the Turkish Sultan
for a galley to take him away from Candia, and in this
endeavour was discovered. Letters in his own handwriting
and ciphers used by him proved that his attempt had been
a desperate one. When the knowledge of his plots with the
arch-enemy came to Venice, the Ten were augmented, and
directions sent to Candia for the gathering of more evidence.
Yet the inclination of the Council was so far from severe, that it
was deUberately proposed that " having regard to the lightness
of Jacopo's character, so well known to all, and considering that
in the place where he was he could do little or no harm to the
Republic," it would be sufficient if the Governor of the island
seriously admonished and warned him. But this suggestion,
with another to send " two faithful persons " to watch him

224 THE DOGES OF VENICE

night and day, was not accepted. In the end a messenger
was dispatched to bring the said Foscari, with his cook and
other servants, immediately to Venice, and to search his house,
boxes, clothes and person for writings. The member of the
Ten charged with this mission, was appointed by letters-patent
of the Doge.

No tortures were applied at this time to the light-minded
one. He confessed everything spontaneously, and his trial
lasted only a day. Regarding his punishment, there were
various propositions. To some Councillors it seemed sufficient
to give him a good admonition and warning, and to send him
back to Candia, there to be well guarded and surveyed.
Another thought he should endure a year of imprisonment first.
Yet another that he should be simply sent back. Jacopo
Loredano, however, wanted the fullest pa5anent, and urged
that the letters and other writings of Jacopo Foscari were
so damaging to the honour of the Republic that nothing
short of decapitation between the two columns could be a
just satisfaction for the State. According to custom, each
proposition was voted on, and in the end the mildest received
two votes and the severest seven. But no less than twenty-
two councillors approved of sending the culprit back to Candia
and giving him a year of imprisonment there, with the strict
injunction that if he ever corresponded with any more princes,
he should finish his days in the gaol.

Jacopo had been only three days in Venice when this
sentence was passed. There could be no mitigation of it, but
it was conceded to the wretched man to see his family in the
Torricella before he departed again for Candia. As a subse-
quent grace to the Serenus Dominus himself, the final interview
between Jacopo, his father and other relatives, took place in
the Camera del cavaliere. Even at this eleventh hour the
Hght-natured Jacopo did not believe that his father was
unable to reverse his sentence.

" Father, I implore you, get me the permission to return
to my own house," he begged.

But the Doge replied — what else could he reply ? — " Go,
Jacopo, obey the wUl of your country and seek no other way."
Jacopo was led forth.

PEACE AND WAR IN COMPLEMENT 225

Then could the elder Foscari no longer control his sorrow.
" Oh, the pity of it ! " pieta grande ! he cried with sobs,
and dropped to a low seat, a heart-broken old man.

The measure of his despair was completed in the following
January. The parting with his son had taken place in July
1456.

Despite his unswerving patriotism and integrity, perhaps
because of it, some faithful friends of his in the Council obtained
a relaxation of the terms of his son's incarceration. But the
favour was too late. News came to Venice of Jacopo's death ;
and that news, more than age, illness and the earlier grief,
seemed to strike the old Doge down. He had, however, a
physical affliction that undermined his energies and strength,
but the wounds of his soul were aggravations of his body's sore.
From January to October 1457, Foscari was as one dead
to the State. He took no part in affairs, answered no call
to Council, heeded neither the prayers nor the admonitions
of his officers and advisers.

In October there met for a second time a Council of Ten,
with a Junta of twenty-five, to treat of very secret matters
concerning His Serenity.

This Council proceeded first to exclude from their disputa-
tions, as relatives of the Foscari, the Contarini. It was then
proposed by one party that a Vice-Doge should be elected to
fulfil the duties of the Head of the State, while to the existing
Doge should be left his full dignity with its emoluments, the
regalia and other appurtenances of his office. But the majority
were against any suggestion that a Doge was other than a re-
movable officer of State, and the Capi presented a well-balanced
and exactly-worded proposition in which it was set forth that
it was the duty of the Government to conserve by force all that
Venice had gained by her great wars ; to regard the State as
dearer than life itself and as founded upon laws and holy or-
dinances that had to be observed and executed. The age and
decrepitude of the Doge having prevented him for so long from
governing or presiding at audiences, it was reasonable to sup-
pose that he would never recover his ability to rtile, it was
the duty therefore of the Privy Councillors and the Heads of the
Ten, with the authority of the Ten and the Junta, to present
13

226 THE DOGES OF VENICE

themselves before the illustrious Prince and to explain to him
how impossible it was to administer the great and grave
business of the State without his presence and co-operation.
So it was determined that the Ten and the Junta should exhort
and pray His Serenity for the good of the State and, like a good
father of his country, to renounce the Dogate. Especially was
it hoped the Doge would do this thing, because the Council had
provided that he should be paid month by month from the salt
dues a salary of 1500 golden ducats a year for life.

The memorandum concluded with the provision that the
reply of His Serenity should be immediately reported to the Ten,
who were not to depart far from the chamber in which they were
met. If the Doge required time to consider the propositions
made to him, he was to be allowed tiU the hour of terce on the
morrow.

The aged Foscari proved to be far from senile. Indeed, he
seemed as wary and judicious as any ruler need be. The sharp
action of the Ten provided a certain stimulus, and Foscari
replied to their spokesman that he would not answer either one
way or another. He reserved his personal liberty. Firrther,
he reminded them of the laws which demanded that the de-
position of a Doge should depend upon the suffrages of the
Privy Councillors combined with those of the majority of the
Great Council.

This question having been debated, the opinion prevailed
that the Ten and the Junta had power to ask for the resignation,
and a deputation was sent in a second time to the Doge. It
failed, however, as the first had done, to move the obstinate old
man. The decision was therefore taken to tell Foscari peremp-
torily, that he must resign, and that unless he quitted the
palace in eight days' time, all his personal property would be
confiscated. There followed the last sad acts of the career of
Francesco Foscari ; acts fully as pathetic as his poignant words,
pieta grande !

The ducal ring was taken from him and broken in the
presence of the Privy Councillors and the Heads of the Ten. The
biretta with the golden band surrounding it was lifted from his
head, and he had to promise in form to leave the palace and to
repair to his own house at San Pantaleone. Then, at last, did

PEACE AND WAR IN COMPLEMENT 227

Doge Foscari understand that his regal dignity was gone from
him, and that he was only a superannuated public servant who
waited upon death. As the councillors retired from the last
audience of his holding, one Jacopo Memmo, Chief of the Forty,
fixed on him a look of gentle compassion. The old man saw it
and called the young one to him.

" Whose son are you ? " he asked.

" 1 am the son of Messer Marin Memmo," was the reply.

" My dear colleague," murmured Foscari, as there rushed in
upon consciousness memories of past days. " Tell him from
me to come and see me. We wiU take our ease together in a
gondola and pay visits to the monasteries."

On the following day he walked out of the palace with no
other help than the staff he leaned on. His brother Marco,
and other old friends and relatives, including undoubtedly his
good wife Marina Nani, followed him. As the old Doge made
for the stone stairway that led into the courtyard, his brother
checked him, " Serenity, it wiU be best to go to our bark by the
covered staircase."

These steps descended directly from the first floor of the
palace to an opening on to the rio now spanned by the Bridge
of Sighs. But Foscari had no feeling that he had cause to hide
himself, and replied stoutly —

" I will descend by the staircase whereby I ascended to the
Dogate."

So he passed by what was in truth that day the stairway of
a giant, although the year was yet to come in which the more
imposing structure known as the Scala dei Giganti was erected.

The deposition of this Doge was not a popular act. For
thirty-four years he had reigned in great magnificence over a
glorious Venice, and those whose hearts had not been hardened
by too great study and application of arts pohtical and too
extreme devotion to state interests and governmental discipline,
were sad for the old man so stricken in his family life. They
would have borne with him in the vagaries of his dotage, for
the sake of the judgments and activities of his robust manhood. .
But the Ten had justified their existence as guardians of the
constitution and officers of inexorable justice, and their only
care was by added vigilance and various inquisitorial processes

228 THE DOGES OF VENICE

they well knew how to apply, to prevent a poptilar outbreak.
Murmurs of citizens warned them that they had stretched
their authority far enough, and when the Great Council met to
nominate a new Doge, the Ten declared themselves unable to
interfere at all in a matter which belonged wholly to the
Maggiori. Among other preliminary resolutions passed then
by the Great Council, was one to restrain the power of the Ten.
It was decreed that they should not in future interfere in anything
that concerned the ducal Promissione, except in a case of felony.

It was indeed as if the judgment of the populace and the de-
cree of the Great Council were confirmed by a Voice fromHeaven.

Foscari had quitted the Ducal Palace on the 24th of October.
On the 30th the election was announced of his successor,
Pasquale Malipiero. From respect for the old Doge, as was
said, but from fear of a popular outburst, in truth, no cere-
monies of installation were at once arranged. Being All
Saints' Day, the new Doge attended a solemn Mass in the
Church of St. Mark. But even as he knelt there, the strange
thing happened that a messenger came to him to announce
the death of Francesco Foscari. No wonder the councillors
looked at each other mutely ! Here, indeed, had been labour
thrown away, and aU who had been concerned with the deposition
of the late Doge, so runs a record of the time, were filled with
remorse lest by their deed they had shortened an old man's days.

But it was remorse for an act that had made themselves
unpopular, and which Providence had performed for them,
had they been patient for a few days longer, by which some
among the Ten and the Junta were overwhelmed. More
than ever, when the death of Foscari became known, did
people say that the administrators of the law of Venice had
been merciless and exceeded their functions.

Foscari died of haemorrhage from a cancer of the tongue.
He could not, in any case, have lived much longer — at least
without great suffering.- But very likely the excitement of
leaving the palace and his dignities, as well as that of putting
up with inconveniences in a home not fully prepared for his
living in — he had sold his ancient family dwelling and bought
the palace of San Pantaleone on the Grand Canal during his
Dogate — caused the bleeding. It was resolved to atone for a

PEACE, AND WAR IN COMPLEMENT 229

harsh and unpopular act by giving the ex-Doge a! funeral of
the same pomp as if he had been the reigning Duke at his death.

There was but one dissentient to this resolve. The loyal,
proud and capable Marina Nani — she who had for so long
played her part as Dogaressa with dignity and reticence — said
boldly that the compensation came too late, and declared that
she would herself provide for her husband all fitting funeral
ceremonies, if she had to spend part of her dower to pay for them.

But her words were disregarded, and Doge Foscari lay
in state in the great saloon of the Signori delta notte with
the ducal biretta on his head, the golden spurs on his feet, the
sword of Venice at his side, and the mantle of state wrapped
round him. Borne on a bier beneath a canopy of cloth of gold
by stout mariners, with a bodyguard of twenty gentlemen
in suits of scarlet and followed by the whole Signory headed by
Pasquale Malipiero in simple senatorial garb, the dead Doge
was carried amid a blaze of candles through the length of the
Merceria to the Church of the Frari, where his funeral oration
was delivered by the historian Bernardo Giustinian.

The one unpopular event of his reign seems to have been the
war with MUan. The eulogist was careful, therefore, to rehearse
the causes of Foscari's quarrel with Visconti and to show that
Venicehad been driven into the war'af ter many attempts at peace.

Thus ended one of the most brilliant reigns in all the history
of Venice ; a reign that both in art and in literature, as well
as in its substantial conquests and general prestige, left a
mark and established a reputation that were not easily obliter-
ated or reduced ; that, indeed, in some sense, endure unto this
day. No less than nine of the great pictures by Tintoretto
and other Venetian painters, which proclaim from the walls
of the Ducal Palace the dramatic character of the ducal story,
represent incidents of Foscari's time. Besides these retro-
spective memorials, there was placed, soon after his death,
over the entrance of the palace known as the Porta detla Carta,
a sculptured figure of Foscari himself kneeling in prayer before
the Lion of St. Mark. This monument was destroyed by the
radicals in 1797, but a modern reproduction now occupies its
place, and a fragment of the original — the head of the Doge —
is still preserved in the palace.

CHAPTER XIII
WORTHIES AND A KINGLY PATRIOT

A.D. 1457 TO 152I

DURING his five years' reign, Doge Pasquale Malipiero
proved himself a respectable ofiicial, but he achieved
no personal fame. It would have been hard for any but
a very great man to have charmed the popular imagination
whUe Francesco Foscari was well remembered, and Malipiero
was not great. He seems only to have had the gentleness and
indecision of character which make an officer under the
direction of many captains unoffending and placatory.

On the other hand, his wife Giovanna (Dandolo) gained
considerable reputation. She was believed to be a real en-
courager of the arts of which, as Dogaressa, she was formal
patroness. Lace-making and printing particularly benefited
by her interest. She has the distinction of being the first
Dogaressa always to be attended by ladies-in-waiting, and to
occupy with them a special dais on ceremonious occasions. It
was for her that the order ran that the Dogaressa should hence-
forward wear a mantle of cloth of gold resembling that of the
Doge. The rites of her enthronement were particularly solemn.
She seems also to have been the first Dogaressa to wear a
hirettina of the same shape as the corno of the Doge, but
smaller. It is not quite exact, however, to say that she was
crowned with it. All the four Dogaresse who are known to
have worn the hirettina, issued from the houses whence started
their processions to San Marco, with it already on their heads.
The biretta of the Doge had come to be very severely modelled
in a gold brocade to match the material of the State mantle.
It had a stiff band of gold galleon round it, above which was

WORTHIES AND A KINGLY PATRIOT 231

placed, at times of special ceremony, the jewelled circlet. The
cross added by Lorenzo Celsi had been laid aside with other
jewels that made the headdress too heavy.

The Doge succeeding Pasquele Malipiero was Cristoforo
MoRO, whose Promissione confirmed a change of the style of
the Venetian government which had been for some time in
common use. No longer was Venice to be called a Commune
or Republic. The State was to be designated thenceforward
the Dominium or Signory. This was the final mark of the
completely aristocratic character of the government of Venice.
The rights of the commonalty had long since been taken
away in fact. At the crowning of Doge Cristoforo Moro they
were destroyed in name also.

Although advanced in years when he came to the throne,
the squinting, malformed, sinister-looking Moro professed
great fervour for a Crusade. One of the first acts of his
government was the dispatch of an embassy to Constanti-
nople to complain of Turkish aggressions in Dalmatia and
Albania. He also sent many messages to the Pope, urging
His Holiness to take steps anew for the pacification of
Christendom. As a pledge of good intentions, the Signory
came to accord with the people of Trieste, with whom they
had been fighting on account of imposts levied on Venetian
commerce in Istria.

Duke Philip of Burgundy having declared himself ready
to proceed to the eaistem seat of war, the Pope desired the
Doge to take the same resolution. Moro at once responded
to the exhortation of Pius 11, to the extent of reading the
papal brief to the assembled Cabinet and speaking on it in
the following terms : —

" Signori ! No leaf of tree falls to the ground without the
will of God. Consider how this state of ours has come to
such a height of grandeur, more by process of the will of
God than by our own thought or force ! How could our
contentions with the Turks have gone so well save by the
will of God ? Let us turn our minds to God and to His
Mother, and, thanking her for all the benefits we receive day
by day, strengthen ourselves to do her bidding and to free
ourselves from hatred and envy. If we do this, God will

232 THE DOGES OF VENICE

prosper this state more and more. It may soar to the highest
if we depart not from charity, prayer and doing justice."

Proceeding, the Doge informed the coUegio, or Cabinet,
that he had already rephed to the Pope's letter that he de-
pended on the will of the Signory to whom for many years all
power had been delegated. He begged them therefore to deliber-
ate with prayer and charity " loosed from the bond of passion."

" Pray then the goodness of God," he concluded, " in
all humility — for humilitas vincit omnia — that He may inspire
you to decide what is our honour and what our duty."

The effect of this harangue was that the Doge's proposal
to join the league against the Turks was agreed to by 1607
votes to II, with 16 non sinceri. Moro capped the climax
by proposing to go himself on the Crusade. A little later,
however, he withdrew the proposition on account of his
age and ill-health. Such non-heroic reconsideration was not
to the taste of the Council, and Vettore Capello, rising in his
place, declared that it was necessary for Moro to go. The
Republic could not retract. There would be given to aid the
Doge a gentleman well versed in maritime sciences. Further-
more, he should have four special councillors to advise him
in his command. The hesitator could only declare that,
since the Signory wished it, he would obey.

Moro's fleet of twenty-four sail soon put out for Ancona,
where it arrived on 12th August 1464. He was immediately
invited to visit the Pope at his palace there. On the day
set for the meeting, however, a Cardinal brought the message
that His Holiness was indisposed and asked to have the
visit of the Doge postponed until he was better. In compli-
ment, Moro sent his attendant physician to call on the Pontiff.
This functionary found the august patient at the point of
death ; and the following night Pius 11 died.

One of the first acts of the Cardinals on the morrow was
to go to Doge Moro to announce the sad occurrence and to
express their regret, in view of the grave obstruction to the
expedition that had arisen, that His Serenity had put him-
self to so much inconvenience to come to Ancona. To a
subsequent conference with the Cardinals, Moro was

WORTHIES AND A KINGLY PATRIOT 233

conducted with all honour, mounted on a charger covered
to the feet with trappings of cloth of gold, and accompanied
by the entire populace of the city. There he exhorted the
ecclesiastics to carry on the Crusade for the honour of God
and in defence of the Holy Faith. Further, the Doge of
Venice, unconscious as it would seem of any presumption
in his words, enjoined the Cardinals to pay no respect to
man in their choice of a new Pope, but to have a single eye
for the peril which menaced all Christianity. He added that,
so far as the Republic was concerned, all things were ready.
The Signory would give six thousand ducats a year to help
in the resistance of the common enemy. But the Turk was
armed at all points and the King of Hungary needed money.

In response to the Doge, Cardinal Niceno highly lauded
the Republic and all that it had always done for Christianity,
particularly praising Moro for being the only prince who had
as yet followed the example of the Pope. Niceno concluded
by promising that in any case the Cardinals would provide,
at their own expense, five galleys for four months. This
palaver over, the Doge returned almost instantly to Venice.
Disembarking at the Lido on 23rd August 1464, he was re-
ceived with all signs of honour and rejoicing, and conducted
in the Bucintoro to the Ducal Palace.

It was not the actual destiny, as perhaps it had never
been the genuine intention of Moro personally to carry the
banner of St. Mark on a Crusade. Yet war with the Turks
waged desperately for many years, and Venice was so far
successful that, almost single-handed among European powers,
she kept the Moslem hosts at bay.

The King of Hungary's need of money resulted in the
selling of his friendship to the Ottomans, but the alliance of
the Venetians with the Persians, under their valorous leader
Usunhasan, caused the Turks to be drawn more towards
Asia. The way was thus left clearer than it would otherwise
have been, for Venetian admirals and captains to defend
their colonies in the east ; but in 1474 Scutari was lost, and
Negropont was also taken from Venice. No wonder, there-
fore, that the Venetian Government manoeuvred quite
desperately to gain possession of Cyprus.

234 THE DOGES OF VENICE

It was reserved for Doge Agostino Barbarigo to receive
the ex-Queen Caterina (Cornaro) of Cyprus at the Lido, when in
1489, upon the advice of the Venetian admiral sent to protect
her rights, she resigned her crown in favour of the Venetian
Signory. As " a daughter of St. Mark," Caterina had been
married to the King of Cyprus, Giacomo 11 di Lusignano, in
1468. The death of her husband in the year 1472 had been
followed by that of his posthumous son and heir a few months
after. Probably she had not required much persuasion to bring
her back to her old home ; especially as she came, weeiring her
titles of Queen of Cyprus, Jerusalem and Armenia, to a royal
welcome and a settled estate — the gift of the Signory — at Asolo.

But before the day of Agostino Barbarigo, though after
that of Cristoforo Moro, there was a succession of Doges
whose reigns were remarkably short. NicoLO Tron had
succeeded Moro in 1471 ; Nicolo Marcello came to the
throne a year later ; Pietro Mocenigo followed in 1474 ;
and after him came Andrea Vendramin, who reigned two
years. Then Giovanni Mocenigo, brother to Pietro, held
the dignity for seven years. He was followed by Marco
Barbarigo, who gave place within twelve months .to his
brother Agostino, a veteran of seventy-eight, who kept his
place for only five years. Among all these, only the Mocenigi
won general favour, although they, Hke the brothers Barbarighi,
were of the new houses and members of a league to which the
Tron, Vendramin, Foscari, Moro, Grimani, Gritti, Loredano,
and Malipiero families also belonged, and which was formed
in 1450 to prevent any more descendants of the old nobility
rising to the Dogate. There were no protests from councillors
whose aristocracy dated back to the time of the Tribunes,
when the Mocenigi were elected, and no demurs from pre-
cisians because one member of a family so quickly followed
another in power. But there was an outburst from the de-
feated side when Marco Barbarigo was immediately succeeded
by his brother. The objections, however, seemed to be
chiefly because of the repeated elevations of mushrooms,
rather than because minds were fearful of any attempt to
establish an hereditary dogate.

Nicolo Tron had made a fortune at Rhodes and was a man

NICOLO TRON

FROjM a I'AINTIXG IN THE PALAZZO DUCALE, VENICE

WORTHIES AND A KINGLY PATRIOT 235

of great business ability. He gave particular attention to the
coinage, and under his direction the lira was made of the
actual value of twenty silver soldi. Other pieces were also
brought by him up to their full standard, and his pride in this
accompUshment, if not in all tasks of his office, was signalized
by his stamping all coins of his year of reign with his own
effigy. Among all the Doges who had preceded him, only his
immediate antecedent, Moro, had dared to do this kingly
thing, and his forbidding countenance had appeared on very
few pieces. The Lire Tron were, however, widely circulated,
and all great numismatic collections display specimens of
them. We know his own arrogance was responsible for the
design, because the Promissione of his successor prohibited
all future Doges from putting their heads on coins. They
might only be represented kneeling before a figure of St. Mark.
That Nicolo Tron fondly desired and successfully obtained
the perpetuation of his physiognomy is part of the irony
of human things, since he was a swollen, brutal-looking
person — a stammerer and a slobberer. He was, however, a
lover of magnificence of all kinds, and both he and his Dogar-
essa (Dea Morosini) went gorgeously robed in cloth of gold
and many jewels. Yet beneath the splendid garments and
repulsive aspect, form and manners, Nicolo Tron wore the
heart of a man who sorrowed, who had lost the desire of his
soul. His beard had been allowed to grow upon the death of
a son who had departed this world prematurely. He had
sworn an oath never to have it shaved or clipped. It was to
go with him to his grave, as a sign of his constant mourning.
We are not told if the mother too displayed an outward
token of her grief, but hers was a chastened spirit. She was
a woman as gentle as she was beautiful. When courtiers
complimented Dogaressa Dea on charms corresponding to
her name, it was her habit to reply with playful seriousness,
"Dea s^ a Dio." That she was a woman of devotion to
her God, rather than a woman of Goddess-like qualities, is
testified by her husband's constant assertion that he owed
all his good fortune in life to his Dogaressa's prayers. Some
proof too of her Christian humility lies in the fact that she
shrank from sepulture beside her Prince, whose superb monu-

236 THE DOGES OF VENICE

ment in the Church of the Friary is the most pompous
memorial any Doge of Venice ever had. She desired to be
lowly buried in the monastery of San Giobbe.

Pietro Mocenigo was a fine old sea-dog who had spent
years fighting the Turks in eastern waters before he was
chosen to give them battle from a western throne. Andrea
Vendramin came of a wealthy family long doing business as
provision dealers, which had been taken into the ranks of the
nobility after the siege of Chioggia. It is related of Doge
Andrea that he gave his daughters on their marriages, portions
much exceeding the amounts prescribed by the laws of Venice
as the dowers of girls of rank, and said he did it in order to
have sons-in-law to his liking. As he gained his election through
his extensive family connections, there is little doubt that his
liking was for sons of ancient and influential houses.

In the time of Giovanni Mocenigo came the plague which
carried off his wife Taddea (Michiel), when she had been
Dogaressa only a year. This Mocenigo was the first of the
Doges to be left a widower on the throne, and the obsequies
of Taddea were of a regality equal to that observed when a
Serenity himself departed.

In life she had been installed in special luxury, and among
other costly furnishings of her gilded saloons had been a
" seraglia di animali rari." At her death her waxen effigy lay
in state in the Sala delPiovego, and her embalmed body, clothed
in the ducal mantle and birettina, was exposed to the public
gaze in the Church of San Geminiano, whence it was carried
in pompous procession to its final resting-place in the Church
of SS. Giovanni e Paolo. An added note of tragedy was im-
parted to the story of her decease, by the circumstance that
at the time of it the Doge also lay mortally sick and the
fact could not be at once communicated to him.

The chief correction of the ducal Promissione of the Doge
Marco Barbarigo — who came after Giovanni Mocenigo — was
that he and his successors were to be styled Ducatus Veneti-
arum, or " Doge of the Venetians," instead of " Doge of Venice."
It was however stipulated that all proclamations made by
decrees of Councils, should be issued in the name of the Doge.

Upon the death of Marco Barbarigo there was undoubtedly

MONUMENT TO PIETRO MOCENIGO IN SS. GIOVANNI F. PAOLO:

WORTHIES AND A KINGLY PATRIOT 237

a hope that some representative of the case vecchie would
wrest the Dogate from the hands of the curti, as members
of the case nuove were contemptuously called by all shoots of
cincient stock. This did not take place, and so dissatisfied
were the vecchie, that no amount of vigorous eloquence from
the new Doge, who made a prompt attempt to calm the minds
of the electors, had any effect on the malcontents. And the
Doge who failed to give quiet at home was unsuccessful also
in making peace abroad. Yet when, in his eighty-third year.
Doge Agostino Barbarigo attempted to pass back to the
Ancient of the Councillors the ring which, with the corno,
he had received from that worthy at his coronation, the
Councillors would not allow him to leave the palace for his
house at San Trovaso. There was still no hope of any but
curti being elected to the ducal chair, and constant elections
were very disturbing to state business. So the Most Serene
Prince was told that the Signory trusted in God that his health
would permit him to remain yet many years on the throne,
and he, feeling the pressure of his age, submitted to the
general veto, sa3dng that perhaps he was sufficiently old
and ill for it to have been already provided that he would
not last long ; he desired therefore not to cause them any
trouble.

These words, we are told, being praised as the dicta of a
patriot, went far to dispense the odium into which the utterer
had fallen. But being dead, there was loud murmuring
against him, and he was accused of corruption, of selling
justice and of arbitrarily distributing offices. To appease
his accusers, three new officials were created, who bore the
ominous name of Inquistori del Doge Defunto. Their business
was to investigate scrupulously in which articles of his
Promissione a late Doge had been found wanting. These
officers were additional to the Corretori dei Promissione, but
there is no particular evidence that their severely inquisitorial
powers prevented future Doges from falling into faults and
weaknesses to which human nature in general is prone.

In order to understand the character and actions of Doge
Leonardo Loredano, as we who are so familiar with Bellini's
subtle yet emphatic^ portrait of him in the National Gallery

238 THE DOGES OF VENICE

must desire to understand him, a glance should be taken at the
European situation in his day.

It was a situation which had developed desperately for
Venice, during the succession of short and insignificant reigns,
which had deprived the Dogado of a chief who commanded
respect abroad. Against the Emperor Maximilian in Germany,
Ferdinand of Aragon in Spain, Charles vii and Louis xii in
France, Henry vii in England and Alexander vi (Roderigo
Borgia) in Rome, the Venetians had pitted traditional policies
and most signorial diplomacies. The Doges had been no more
than officers of the Councils, and the plan of these bodies had
been to appropriate as many trading advantages, while con-
ceding as few, as possible ; to keep their highly-paid con-
dottier-generals busy ; and to possess themselves of any
neighbouring cities to be conquered incidentally whether 1^
stratagem or the sword. They had also continued to court
and compliment the princes and governors of nations, whom
they robbed at the same time of colonies and spheres of
control, and they had occupied papal territories while they
assured the Pope that they did so only to hold them as his
nominees and to make his seat securer in the Apostolic See.

NeutraUty, however, rather than possession, was the mark at
which Venice had aimed ; a neutrality that would keep her clear
of obligations as well as free from all subjection to any other
state and that would enable her to gain an advantage from
every combination or disruption between foreign countries or
rival princes. A policy so selfish and sordid was bound to
rouse anger and provoke retaliations.

Already before Leonardo Loredano was made Doge
(A.D. 1501), the thought was in the minds of some foreign
rulers that the pride and ambition of the Venetians might
well be curbed. But the Doge for the hour, the Prince who
could at once represent the Venetians and typify Venice, had
to come to his own, before the League was formed that tested
the strength and spirit of the Venetians as they had never
been tested before.

Upon the death of Agostino Barbarigo the people's cry, not
stifled although for so long disregarded, had been for Filippo
Tron, a son of the Doge Nicolo. But this popular favourite

GIOVANNI MOCKNIGO

FROM THE PAINTING i;V BELLINI IN THE MUSEO CORKER, VENICE

WORTHIES AND A KINGLY PATRIOT 239

who, like his father, was corpulent and unwholesome-looking,
died while the Forty-One were assembled to make their choice.
Loredano's candidature seems to have been somewhat em-
pirical, but he came to the throne with a definite task to
perform. That task was the making of peace with the
Turks. Six years before, fighting had begun again with these
old adversaries, and during the last three years it had been
continued from no legitimate cause. But although in relation
to the Turk the policy of the new Doge appeared to be sub-
versive of that which the Signory was following, in other
affairs Loredano showed himself a Sovereign who dared to
put his country's poUcy to the test, and win or lose all that
that policy aimed at or provided for.

Under Loredano's rule, Venice strove more anxiously than
ever to avoid complications. France and Spain were dis-
puting the succession of the Kingdom of Naples, and the new
Doge wrote to his governor in Brindisi to observe a strict
neutrality towards the belligerents. At the same time, a diplo-
matic mission was sent to King Louis xii to assure him that
Venice had had no part in the movement of the Orsini family
against the Pope. Similar protests were sent to the Pontiff him-
self and to his plotting, turbulent son, Cesare, Duke of Valentino.

Thus matters went along until the sudden death of Alex-
ander VI, in August 1503, put a match to many smouldering
passions and ambitions. The Orsini and other Roman barons
sprang to arms to recover lands appropriated for the late
Pope's darling, and, while French and Spanish soldiery paraded
Rome under pretext of maintaining the hberty of the papal
elections, the Venetians sent instructions to their governor in
Ravenna that if it were possible to seize any of the properties
of Valentino, they should be taken at once, particularly
Faenza. What could be done, was to be accomplished with
" celerita, circospezione, e secrezza." The resiilt proved that a
great deal was possible, and, while Rome remained inoperative
and unsettled, owing to the death within a month of his succes-
sion, of Pius III, Venice quickly and circimispectly assumed
possession not only of Faenza, but of Cesena, Imola and
Rimini as well.

But there arose a Pope who was a man of courage as

240 THE DOGES OF VENICE

well 35 of talent and courtliness. Julius ii was quick to make
known his intention of re-acquiring the whole of the Romagna
for the Papacy, and told a Venetian orator that while he
gave him good words, his Signory performed dastard actions,
and a Bull was sent from the Holy Father exhorting the
Venetians, benevolently enough, to make restitution. The
Republic was stubborn. The cities claimed had not been
taken directly from the Papacy. Rimini, for one, had been
obtained through an arrangement with Pandolfo Malatesta,
to whom Venetian nobility, a house in Venice and 4400 ducats
had been paid.

The response of the Doge himself to the Pope's legates was
as fiery and tenacious as Venetian response could be. Before
the lands should be given up, Venetians would spend the very
foundations of their houses.

Yet when it was known that the nations were joining
in censure of the ducal action, and that the Pope had appealed
to all Christian Princes to make peace with one another and
to repossess themselves of states seized by Venice on the
terra firma, Loredano found it to be the better part of valour
to reconsider his words. The lands taken from Valentino
were given up, and those derived from Malatesta (Rimini
and Faenza) alone retained. Then did the Venetians as
huoni e carissimi figli delta sede apostolica set about making
friends again with the nations. A letter of condolence was
written to the most Cathohc King Ferdinand on the death
of his consort, the Queen Isabella. The Emperor Maximilian
was recommended to come into Italy for his coronation,
but asked to come peaceably and without an army. The
Pope was supplicated to oppose the entry into Italy of all
foreign armies without distinction, and France was written
to in a friendly strain, with disclosures concerning the actions
and intentions of the Emperor.

But the hour was too late for propitiations. The League
was already in process of constitution, the final and forcible
League of Cambray, which, according to the actual pre-
amble of the Treaty, was formed to " put an end to the loss,
injury, rapine and damage the Venetians had brought not
only upon the Holy Apostolic See, but on the Holy Roman

WORTHIES AND A KINGLY PATRIOT 241

Empire, on the house of Austria, the duchy of Milan, the
King of Naples, and many other princes ; occupying and
tyrannically usurping their goods, possessions, cities and
castles," so that the signatories had found it " not only
desirable and honourable, but necessary to caU all nations
to a just vendetta for the purpose of extinguishing — ^like a
conflagration lighted to consume them all — the insatiable
cupidity of the Venetians and their greed of dominion."

After the preamble came the schedule of lands to be
divided up and reclaimed by the powers to whom they had
actually, or supposititiously, once belonged.

Venice had not expected such a marshalling of her enemies ;
such a disentombment and revivification of the spites of
ages.

Fast and furious went the couriers with letters from the
Senate to all the capitals of Europe, and in order to avoid
storm and bloodshed in the peninsula, the Signory offered to
cede also Faenza and Rimini to Pope Julius 11.

The only friendly response to all the missions, was an
offer from England to act as intermediary between Venice
and her enemies. But the time had not come for arrange-
ments or compromises, and Venice found herself at bay
with empires and kingdoms, dukedoms and principalities,
and even the spirituahty itself in arms against her.

It w£is not Loredano who had brought this state of things
about. No one man was responsible for this denouement of
long acts of ambitious exploit and manoeuvre. Not in one age
had the feeUng been generated that flamed to such white
heat at last. But Loredano knew how in some sort to assuage
the fire of passionate resentment, and to kindle hope, vigour
and courage in Venetian breasts.

The Doge called a meeting of the Councillors and re-
minded them that their country had been founded by the
saints-progenitors, by means of the "divine help, and from
himible beginnings had arrived at its height of greatness.
This greatness it was that had stirred up the hatred of the
princes and brought upon themselves ingratitude for benefits
conferred. The King of France particularly, whom the
Republic had so greatly assisted in Italy, had broken faith
16

242 THE DOGES OF VENICE

with them, being bribed by the King of the Romans. Let
those who had their beginning in God commend themselves
again to Him ; let them reform their corrupt usages, let
them do justice and so proceed in all elections to offices that
merit alone and not the broglio ^ must be successful.
In conclusion, Loredano besought the Councillors to vie with
one another in Contributing the sinews of war, since if they
lost their battle they would lose a fine state ; they would
themselves be no more Councillors ; they would no longer
be citizens of a free country. All this and much more did
Loredano say. But his actions spoke louder than words.
Setting an example, he sent his plate to the mint as a beginning
of the " Public Bank of St. Mark," which it was usual to
establish in times of great want or danger.

We must remember that the Venetian Republic retained
to the end many of its primitive methods, and at this period
certainly there was no general system of taxation. Many
ordinary as well as all extraordinary expenses had to be
met by voluntary contributions of the wealthy. Loredano
himself complained that only from the people of the poorer
and middle sort were any dues extorted. It had been his
wish to reform this state of things, but other needs of state
had claimed his attention, and he had to do the best he could
with the old system. His best was certainly very good. He
had found an exhausted public exchequer when he came to
the throne. Business funds also had been at a particularly
low ebb. Yet by his own enthusiasm and self-denial, for
he was not a rich man, he drew forth from the coffers of
the rich and patriotic when the crisis came, sufficient 'to
enable Venice to hold her own against such a league of armies
as had never before been joined against one small Dukedom.

Yet, though Loredano could act with vigour, decision
and generosity, he had the deliberation of mind belonging to
his years and race, and, as we have seen, did not in any way
oppose the temporizing policy so much in favour in his day.

" His Serenity," so wrote Marino Sanudo at the time of
Loredano's accession, " determined to do everything to help
this Republic, and in the College, the Senate, and the Great

^ The Venetian synonym for " back-stairs."

WORTHIES AND A KINGLY PATRIOT 243

Couhcil he talked of the great things he wished to accomplish
and which it was reasonable to hope for, since it was written
Doges change ; fortune will come and go ; therefore

IT BEHOVES us TO CONSIDER."

In considering what kind of lever would raise his country
to a higher state of prosperity, rectitude and fame, Leonardo
Loredano showed himself undoubtedly a wise ruler ; never
wiser, perhaps, than when he recognized that in the war
that had to ensue, it would be most damaging to the Venetian
cause to attempt to win by pitched battles.

The instructions to the two generals (Pitigliano and
d'Alviano) appointed to the command of the Venetian forces
at this juncture, were to avoid hand-to-hand fighting with
direct sieges, and simply to keep the enemy moving by a series
of marches and counter-marches. It was the hope of Venice
that so many allies could not for very long keep the peace among
themselves. Every effort was made to detach one party or
another from the League. At the same time, Venice held to
her own. She could not do otherwise. Never less than at
that time could she afford to surrender her dominion of ierra
firma. Her sea power was waning.

Vasco di Gama had sailed round the Cape of Good Hope
in 1497. Columbus had discovered America in 1492. Venice
was no longer the gateway of all seas. The centres of trade
had shifted. The western Indies were striving against the
eastern. There was a southern route to India that had no
port of call in the Mediterranean. Other nations were sending
other navies to shores as rich as those of the Levant. What
could Venice do but temporize ? It was impossible to defy.
Yet one fatal mistake she made at this time, and it may be that
Doge Loredano was as responsible as any other Venetian
Councillor for the making of it. The dividing of the command
between Pitigliano and d'Alviano led to disaster, as all excess-
cessive precautions and too stringent limitations of individual
authority must lead. Pitigliano followed the instructions of
his government, both in spirit and in letter, but d'Alviano, im-
petuous, brave and dashing, although he professed to take
advice of the elder comniander as of his own father, could not
see the obnoxious enemy near and not offer battle, and so lost a

244 THE DOGES OF VENICE

fight and made many difficulties for the Venetian side that
consideration would have avoided. Consideration had its
losses also. In particular, Doge Loredano's long address to an
ambassador sent secretly to him from the Emperor, failed to
achieve the result of gaining Maximilian's agreement to the
holding by Venice of Padua, Treviso, Verona and other cities
of north Italy, on condition of the Doge aiding the
Emperor to recover Milan from the French. All the
protests of Loredano that the Republic was devoted to the
Imperial interests, that he himself held the Emperor very dear,
and that, provided the Venetian right to keep the older cities
were recognized, all the places taken during the last year from
the Emperor would be given up to him, did not prevail. Maxi-
milian was determined on the recovery of Padua, and German
troops were soon pouring through Friuli and laying siege to the
ancient university town.

Padua was actually occupied by the Imperial forces for
some days during the course of operations, but Andrea
Gritti, who had been Proveditor with the Venetian army in
Padua, and was at once a resourceful public servant and an
intrepid and valorous commander of men, devised^ a plan of
retaking the place.

Three great waggons with country produce were sent to
the city which, under the Germans, as under the Venetians,
was greatly in want of provisions. The first two went in
quickly enough over the drawbridge let down for their passage,
but the third was brought to a standstill by a mysterious
mishap, and, before it could be started again, a force of Vene-
tian horse clattered over the bridge, the riders shouting Marco !
Marco !

Some desperate fighting in the streets resulted in the clear-
ance of Padua from the German occupiers (many of whom
were imprisoned in the town) and in the re-establishment of
Gritti as Governor. But again Maximilian came beneath the
walls in which the German and Spanish artillery had made a
breach so formidable that it was seen to be an easy task for
the morrow, to take Padua by assault. The inhabitants, how-
ever, found a means in the night to fill the moat surrounding
the city with water, and the assault could not be made.

WORTHIES AND A KINGLY PATRIOT 245

Then did Maximilian draw off considerable bodies of his
forces, but Pitigliano, fearing strategy and faithful to the
original plan of campaign, would not let the Venetian troops
issue in pursuit. His orders were for the employment of all
forces in strengthening the fortifications of the city. This plan
seemed an excess of caution to Andrea Gritti, who at once wrote
to the Senate regretting that that body, in its wisdom, had not
allowed the army in Padua to pursue the enemy, among whom,
as he had certain notice, there had been much disorder and great
lack of victuals. Only a light company had been allowed to ride
out and infest the enemy's rear, and, from a tower, Gritti had
observed the good execution done by even this small force. He
had also seen troops of Spaniards, rich, but not satisfied with
booty, devastating the surrounding country with fire and rapine,
and laughing at the garrison that dared not go forth to oppose
their rush of spoliation. Gritti further told the Signory that
to suffer so much insolence was damaging to Venetian reputa-
tion. It was to be hoped a more decided victory might yet be
reported by Pitigliano, and that the town might be relieved of
the embarrassment of having so many prisoners with their
baggage, to take care of.

This letter from a statesman differing much in temperament
and opinion from Loredano, yet equally a patriot and a
Venetian, inspired a great speech, made by the Doge in full
Council, in which he very clearly showed that upon the fate of
Padua depended that of the Republic itself.

" Let us hasten then," he cried, " with our goods and
persons. I myseK would go, if the decrepitudes of my age did
not take from me all hope of being of use in this emergency.
But I will send my two sons, and with them shall go all who
will follow the example they are about to set."

No time was lost, for on the following day Alvise and
Bernardo Loredano, with about twenty-five other young
patricians, set out on four well-provisioned barks for Padua.
Others quickly followed — one taking with him at his own
expense twenty-five horsemen. In all, sixty-six young nobles
with about a hundred followers, formed the relief expedition.

Andrea Gritti again wrote to the Government an exact
account of the condition of the city and of all the works carried

246 THE DOGES OF VENICE

out there, and a dispatch from the Senate encouraged and
urged the President, the citizens and the servitors of Padua to
give a good account of themselves and to maintain in glory
the name of Venice. This they so effectually did that all the
bombardments of artillery against the reconstructed walls
and all the Imperial messages of conciliation to the populace
of Padua proved unavailing. On the 2nd of October 1509
the Emperor was forced to raise the siege and retire on
Vicenza, whence very shortly afterwards he returned to
Germany.

As soon as Padua was foimd to be safe from assault, Andrea
Gritti sent messages into the surrounding districts offering
pardons to those who had been driven by fear of the Emperor
into siding with him, and inviting them to return to their
allegiance to Venice. To encourage the timid, he made a great
display of force by drafting and marshalling new troops. This
manoeuvre was reassuring.

The discomfiture of the enemy had been complete and
Venice had gained a moral as well as a substantial victory.
Nevertheless, the League appeared to be imshaken, and, in
despair, an appeal was made by the Signory for help from the
Turkish Sultan. This move had at least the effect of keeping
the King of Hungary from sending forces to the aid of the
German Emperor. Further appeals were also made to King
Henry vii of England and to the King of France, but always,
at heart, the Signory desired more than all to get on terms
again with the Pope. At last, after many offers of con-
cessions on all the points which had been quoted as causes
of offence in the Bull of Excommunication, JuUus 11 consented
to repeal his Interdict and to give Absolution in an audience of
great ecclesiastical state to a representative of the Signory, who
on his part had to show many signs of abasement and contrition.
Although peace was restored with the potentate who was
regarded nominally as the King of Italy, Venice remained at war
with the other signatories to the famous League of Cambray.
But the partition of her territory never took place as planned,
and her holdings on the Mediterranean and the Adriatic were
very little reduced. Evidences of her wonderful recuperative
power were afforded at Carnival time in 1510, Feasts, pageants,

WORTHIES AND A KINGLY PATRIOT 247

coinedies, improvisations, burlesques and buffoonery were
among the entertainments which surpassed all previous ones
in device and display.

Venice was herself again, but yeeurs of flagellation and trial
were yet in store for her, and years of test and trouble for
Loredano. Yet there were recurrences of scenes of brightness.
Notably, when the Doge, with d'Alviano at his side and an
applauding populace pressing on the flanks of their troop of
state, proceeded to the Church of St. Mark where the General
received the standard he was to carry in a war on Milan.
Calling him Illustrissimo Signore, Doge Loredano declared
that he held d'Alviano in the same paternal affection he had
ever felt for him, and that knowing his " singular virtue," his
experience and inviolable faith, he had elected him to be
captain over aU the army, and now presented him with standard
and staff, the sjnnbols of his office.

Staff in hand, d'Alviano took oath to fiilfil his trust,
and the pair, accompanied by the Patriarch, issued from the
church amid the immense crowd of officials and citizens that
had gathered for the ceremony and preceded by the standcird
and by trumpeters blowing their blasts.

Having received the glory, d'Alviano had to do his
work. It was the old story of the intrepid and adventurous
man at arms being controlled and, as it seemed to him, greatly
hiudered by a war poUcy formulated in council chambers.
But he submitted to orders better now than he had done in
earlier years, and, at the same time, acted qtiickly and upon
his own responsibihty when he saw the occasion required
a bold front and great promptitude. So when, after the
retirement of the French from the first conflict, the Spaniards
were known to be marching on Padua and Treviso, d'Alviano
hastened before them to the threatened cities, and was already
in Padua with his forces when Cardona the Spanish captain
attempted the assault. Being driven off, Cardona was not
content with devastating the neighbourhood. Just to satisfy
his vanity he marched to the shores of the lagoons, and from
Malghera fired some cannon-shots in the direction of Rialto.
The consternation was great. Not only did d'Alviano issue
from his partly beleaguered position, but Leonardo Loredano

248 THE DOGES OF VENICE

ascended the ducal chair and deUvered a harangue in his most
grandiose and fervent manner.

God who had helped them in the past and driven the French
out of Italy, he said, could help them now against the fury
of the Germans and Spaniards, who had burned Lizzafusina
and Malghera, almost burned Mestre, and threatened even
Venice with destruction. To-day their army had come out of
Padua, marching with great vigour. They lacked nothing
but money. The public treasury was not enough for the extra
expenses. First, he must exhort aU to pay what they owed
to the Signory. Let them no longer permit long entries in the
books of the palace, but let them go promptly and pay the
tenth they owed. Or they might do now as in the time
when Antonio Contarini made a loan to the State of 60,000
ducats, and Federigo Cornaro, seeing the need of the country,
brought fifteen ingots of silver to the mint. By such means
they themselves had risen from being the fisher-folk they had
been, to such a height of greatness and grandeur that God was
pleased to bring them low. Every one ought to give what
money they could, were it little or much.

Thus did Loredano eloquently appeal again for the volun-
tary aid the State so greatly depended upon. He called also
for volunteers to go to the defence of Padua, where they
would find Cristoforo Moro as Proveditor, and to Treviso, where
Monsignor Andrea Gritti was in charge.

This speech of the Doge, although in his old impassioned
manner, failed somewhat in effect. The compulsion of a per-
sonal example wels lacking. Loredano did not this time offer
to head the public subscription he called for, and he neither
promised to go himself nor undertook to send his sons to the
distressed cities. It was as if the Doge and his auditors alike
were awaiting confirmation of the bad tidings. When the
danger thickened, however, some considerable reinforcements
of patricians and plebeians went to the aid of d' Alviano, and
through one channel or another sufficient funds flowed in upon
the Government to meet the special expenses.

Leonardo Loredano was now seventy-six years old, but
eight years of life lay before him ; eight years in which he did
not play at royalty, but bore himself, even as he had done in

ANTONIO GRIMANI

FROM THE I'AINTING BV TITIAN IN THE MOROSINI GALLERY VENICE

WORTHIES AND A KINGLY PATRIOT 249

the past, with true regaUty. His sumptuous obsequies seemed
a fitting tribute to his great distinction. The gracious
princes, his sons, were the chief mourners of his loss. The
eldest of them, Lorenzo, a Procurator, followed close at his
father's bier.

In the Promissione of Loredano's successor — Antonio
Grimani — it was forbidden to a Doge to give more than evasive
answers to Ambassadors before consulting the Cabinet or other
Council. It was also forbidden for him to have anything to
do with the collection of taxes. Perhaps the caustic observa-
tion of Loredano concerning the advisability of paying at
once, rather than subscribing to contingent guarantees and
pledges in the Government books, was not an acceptable one
to Councillors in general. Loredano had certainly concerned
himself greatly with the methods of taxation which he would
have liked to reform, and it was thought best to let the world
and the next Doge know that the head of the Venetian State
had no prerogatives in regard to the fixing of imposts.

Nevertheless, the whole question of raising subsidies was
becoming a pressing one, and had to be legislated for within
a few years of Loredano's death. The need of increased
armaments by sea and land called for a larger and more regular
state income than that which came from the duties on imports
and from licences for carrying on certain businesses and arts.
As the wise Doge had seen, a more business-like system of
individual tolls and prompt payments would have been a real
reform. Many proposals for income and poll taxes were put
forward in the Senate from time to time, but the Venetians
could not agree upon a tax that would not fall more heavily
upon the poor than upon the rich. The fact had to be balanced
that the nobles and the wealthy gave of free-will, in times of
crisis, more than could be demanded at any time of the com-
moner folk, and the result of all the discussions which Lore-
dano's criticisms had first excited, was the establishment in the
reign of Doge Pietro Lando (1539-1545) of higher dues on all
cloth sold throughout the empire. This was necessarily a tax
that the poorer people greatly resented, and it in no way
advanced the reform Loredano had desired. But it was not
required of the Doge of Venice to be a reformer, and, as if to

250 THE DOGES OF VENICE

emphasize the objections of the Signory to originality in their
Chief, the successor of Loredano was an aged pubhc servant
whose only capacity, in his dotage, seemed to be that of
uttering pious platitudes and making heroic promises that were
quite beyond his power to perform. To the state function-
aries in the Church of St. Mark at his coronation, as well as to
the people who thronged before the palace when he appeared
as their crowned Doge in the loggia, Grimani promised liberally
justice, abundance and peace. He qualified his pledge with
the assurance that if wax did break out he would act gallantly
and proceed in person against the enemy. Before two years
had passed, efforts were made to induce the now obviously
doddering one to retire. He was offered 2000 ducats a year
for life and a ducal funeral. But had he been himself willing
to resign, there were his relatives and particularly certain
scheming nephews, who enjoyed the liberties of the palace
residence and other benefits, who upheld him in the view
that such an offer was an insult. Grimani died, however,
before matters came to a crisis.

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CHAPTER XIV
" PRINCE CHARMING " AND THE HERO OF LEPANTO

A.D. 1522 TO 1578

MONSIGNOR ANDREA GRITTI, a knight of St.
Michael, by special favour of the Signory and of the
King of France who bestowed the order, was an envoy
and Proveditor who had niled men and directed military opera-
tions in many cities under the sway of the Repubhc, even before
he became Proveditor-General of the Venetian army, in which
capacity he exercised practically vice-ducal functions. He was
one of those rare but popular heroes who appear to obtain all
by graces of manner and person, but who, in reality, exercise
considerable forethought and ingenuity in carrying their plans
of govenmient and generally getting their own way. From
the days when, as an emissary of his Government in Turkey
and in France, he had endiured hardship even to the extent
of suffering imprisonment in both countries, and on through
the period of the League of Cambray when he had so cleverly
and courageously held Padua and Treviso for Venice, Gritti had
proved himself a gallant soldier and an independent thinker.
He was perhaps less well-known in Venice ifself than in other
parts of the Empire, and, in any case, he was not the candidate
for the Dogeship most popular with the people.

" Um, Um, Trum, Trum," had been the sing-song cry of
the crowds that gathered in the Piazza at the election-time.
Trum, or Tron, was a grandson of the imsightly Nicolo, whose
wealthy descendants long remained popular. And even
after Doge Gritti had been presented to the people and his
largesse freely distributed, there broke forth at intervals from
the resentful mass " Um, Um, Trum, Trum ! " But Andrea

CHAPTER XIV
" PRINCE CHARMING " AND THE HERO OF LEPANTO

A.D. 1522 TO 1578

MONSIGNOR ANDREA GRITTI, a knight of St.
Michael, by special favour of the Signory and of the
King of France who bestowed the order, was an envoy
and Proveditor who had ruled men and directed military opera-
tions in many cities under the sway of the Republic, even before
he became Proveditor-General of the Venetian army, in which
capacity he exercised practically vice-ducal functions. He was
one of those rare but popular heroes who appear to obtain all
by graces of maimer and person, but who, in reality, exercise
considerable forethought and ingenuity in carrying their plans
of government and generally getting their own way. From
the days when, as an emissary of his Government in Turkey
and in France, he had endured hardship even to the extent
of suffering imprisomnent in both countries, and on through
the period of the League of Cambray when he had so cleverly
and courageously held Padua and Treviso for Venice, Gritti had
proved himself a gallant soldier and an independent thinker.
He was perhaps less well-known in Venice ifself than in other
parts of the Empire, and, in any case, he was not the candidate
for the Dogeship most popular with the people.

" Um, Um, Trum, Trum," had been the sing-song cry of
the crowds that gathered in the Piazza at the election-time.
Trum, or Tron, was a grandson of the unsightly Nicolo, whose
wealthy descendants long remained popular. And even
after Doge Gritti had been presented to the people and his
largesse freely distributed, there broke forth at intervals from
the resentful mass " Um, Um, Trum, Trum ! " But Andrea

252 THE DOGES OF VENICE

Gritti won his own popularity in the end. Who could resist
him ? Not only did he order a large quantity of flour he had
in store, to be sold cheap to the populace, but he continued
a long-established practice of distributing to the poor on a
certain day in every week as much money as he could spare.
His rewards to those he considered had served the Republic
well in any capacity were so liberal that some desired to
restrain his generosity in this respect. He never forgot a
kindness to himself, saying he owed much to those who had
been the means at any time of giving him enjoyment, and he
never ceased to do things for the advantage of any one he had
ever called a friend. Of his aspect when giving and receiving
friendly greeting or official salute, it was said that " nothing
could be more hilarious or jocund." When offended, however,
nothing could be more terrible than the look his countenance
assumed. Accustomed always to speak according to conscience,
he was intolerant in the extreme of any who practised the arts
of dissimulation. A very tenacious memory and a great
perspicacity in judging men were other characteristics of
this Doge who was a considerable asset of the national wealth.
The extraordinary balance of his nature was further proved by
his own saying that he had never in his life been so occupied
with serious affairs as not to be able to enjoy pleasurable
intervals, and, on the other hand, he had never so abandoned
himself to pleasures as to neglect serious business.

Yet for all his valuable qualities, we must regard Gritti as
an exception, both as man and Doge, to most of the rules
whereby his manhood and his office should have been governed.
Of a lavish habit, he spent all his money in his lifetime
and left nothing for his heirs, although it is to be supposed
they had need of some estate from their father. He was
a voluptuary too. Perhaps not more self-indulgent than
many who kept their lapses secret, for Gritti in his whole-
souled, open-handed way, let all the world know of his
liaison when in Turkey with a Greek woman, and he gave his
illegitimate sons by her, offices under government for which,
in his discernment of men and the times, he knew them to be
fitted. He was doubtless a widower when he came to the
throne, and his legitimate son, Francesco, was already estab-

"PRINCE CHARMING " 253

lished in Venice. An old serving-woman, Martha, exercised
over him the only feminine influence of his later years — the
influence of an old nurse or family " goody." When dishes
of an indigestible nature were set before the aged Doge,
Martha was always called to the rescue by his sons, who could
never themselves persuade their father to eat only what was
good for him. Gritti, indeed, seems to have been something
of a glutton in his years, but, for all his enjoyment of food, he
displayed no tendency to corpulence. Physically and morally,
therefore, he has to be regarded as one of those wonders
among humankind who seem only too successfully to defy the
ordinary rules of health and to disregard the customary
conventions of society.

He was the seventy-seventh Doge of Venice and the
inheritor of almost as many Promissioni whereby the ducal
autonomy and ambition had been, item by item, restricted.
In taking his own oath, he had had to renounce the practice
of receiving the thanks of the magistrates with the compli-
ments of their ladies upon their appointments, and to agree
that no relative of his shotild be appointed to an ecclesiastical
benefice. Moreover, he was not to display upon any part of
the Ducal Palace his family tree or personal initials. Never-
theless, he arrogated, during his reign, more authority than
had been exercised by many Doges before him, and to this
day the sculpture in relief of Doge Gritti kneeling before the
Lion of Comata is the central feature of the decoration of the
Piazzetta gate of the Ducal Palace. If Councillors were not at
hand when he received dispatches he opened and read them,
although it was quite contrary to the laws for him to do so.
Especially did he defy the law in times of war, and perhaps,
on occasions, it was well for Venice that he did defy it.
Firm to obstinacy in his opinions, he hated to give way to the
views of a majority in council. His love of luxury and show
was carried to an extreme in the state he kept as Doge, but
in his encourag;ement of industries and all learned studies his
magnificence served the nation well.

Not so good for the city, perhaps, would have been the
carrying out of a private plan he had for enlarging the Ducal
Palace by building vast apartments on the other side of the

254 THE DOGES OF VENICE

rio. He was already in personal negotiation for the purchase
and demolition of houses overlooked by the windows of his
private rooms in the palace, when death set his plans aside.
The scheme was certainly far too extravagant for a Doge
with an empty private plirse, at a time when public money
was also scarce. Yet, for all that, Gritti did good to Venice.
When the Emperor Charles v asserted his Imperial power
by vanquishing Francis i at the battle of Pavia and sending
him a prisoner into Spain, Doge Gritti had the difficult task
of writing conciliatory and comforting letters to the mother
of Francis, Louise of Savoy, who appealed to him to obtain the
release of the King. He also conducted in person the corre-
spondence which followed with Pope Clement vii (Giulio de
Medici), who desired the aid of Venice in establishing, under
Imperial protection, the Sforza in Milan and the Medici in
Florence, and, moreover, required the withdrawal of Spanish
troops from the papal states and the guaranteeing of papal
territories against hostile insult. A treaty to secure these con-
ditions had already been drawn up when Clement first wrote to
Gritti. Venice was given twenty days to adhere to it. The
Doge objected to sign a treaty the clauses of which had not
been submitted to him, but to please His Holiness and as com-
pensation for not sending troops in aid of Charles as the
Pope had expected, he agreed to pay a sum of money to the
high-handed Emperor, who had cheerily said to the Venetian
ambassadors sent to congratulate him after Pavia —

"It is necessary for me to have many expenses. Yoit
are rich and have no need for great expenses ; it is fitting,
therefore, that you should assist me."

For the moment it was the easiest way out of a difficulty
for Venice to promise a money compensation, though money
was not as plentiful on Rialto as the Emperor had been led
to think. Before the fifteen years' reign of Gritti came to
an end, there was an outbreak in Venice of plague, brought
thither from those fields of carnage with which Italy, as the
arena of German and French struggles for the preponderating
influence, was besmeared from end to end. The reapplication
by the government of Gritti of the excellent sanitary regula-
tions which had imdoubtedly been allowed to lapse, did not

" PRINCE CHARMING " 255

result in a speedy stamping out of the pest, but a praise-
worthy forethought was exercised in the appointment, before
any shortage of food was actually felt, of Proveditori sopra
le vittuarie to give doles when the time of famine came. The
consciousness of having done his best, both through his
weekly personal charities and the public provision of the
Proveditori, must have comforted Gritti in the painful experi-
ence that came to him in the year 1527, when paying a
customary official visit to the Church of San Giobbe on the
19th of March. He was surrounded by a wild crowd of women
who cried out " Abundantia, abundantia ! " The cry was an
appeal, not a threat, and Gritti had, to the utmost of his
power, anticipated the plea. But one cannot regard it as
a mark of special captiousness in that despondent chronicler
Sanudo, that he compared the scene on the way to San Giobbe,
and the fact that hundreds of persons did actually perish
from starvation during that sad spring, with the gaiety and
festivity of the rich at the same Carnival time — a gaiety
which Gritti certainly did not condemn, but, as prince of
good feUows, undoubtedly shared.

In spite of his shortcomings, Gritti proved himself on
many occasions a saviour of his country. In difficult and
stormy times he wielded with equal skill the weapons of
policy and force, and it was no mere eulogy of officialism
that Bernardo Navagero, citizen and historian of Venice,
pronounced at his funeral. Never was prince more
highly praised, with f ulsomeness avoided. Navagero's oration
had in it a true thrill when he called upon the young
nobles whom rank, temperament and ability summoned to
the government of their country, to admire and imitate the
most enlightened prince they were met to bury. They were
not to consider the luxury and grandeur of Gritti's ducal
state, but to remember the toilsome path by which he had
arrived at greatness. They were to think of the blameless-
ness of his rule over his subjects, his assiduity in rebuffing
national adversity, and the constant tenor of his soul in
every up and down of fortune. These alone were the acts
which could procure perpetual dignity for their country, and
glory for themselves. Finally, they were to be instructed by

256 THE DOGES OF VENICE

the example of Doge Gritti that the chief care of Venetian
citizens was ever the RepubUc. To the RepubHc must be
consecrated all their thoughts, so long as life endured. Thus
alone would they attain to an immortal existence in the minds
of their countrymen, in the -mouths of foreigners, and in the
records of every future age !

The custom of choosing a Doge only from among the
oldest and most exhausted of the public servants, had already
been established before Andrea Gritti broke that rule, as he
broke so many others, by assertions of his ever - youthful
vigour and his ever-developing capacity. But the hour was
at hand when the electors were actually to despise force of
character and physical strength, and to seek only a venerable
aspect and an unoffending spirit in the figure-head for their
State. As in the case of Antonio Grimani, the Councillors
overreached themselves again and again in their great efforts
after harmless age. Some obstinacies of dotage are worse
than any of the obstinacies of prime. But more and more
the government of Venice hardened into a system which
was weakened rather than aided by princely qualities in the
prince.

The Council of the Ten, originally called into temporary
being at the time of the Tiepolo conspiracy, had become a
permanent institution. To the three chiefs had been gradually
given, for the sake of further secrecy, promptitude and safety,
greater and more arbitrary powers than had been delegated to
the original Ten. We are not to believe — so Romanin and other
authoritative historians tell us — all we have heard and read of
the dark doings of the sinister Three. They were at all times
accountable to the Ten and the Ten to the Great Council. More-
over, the latter body had grown so enormously that, as a
Pariiament, it was quite precluded from dealing with details of
government. The Senate — a body of three hundred experts —
had to initiate all legislation, to control foreign affairs, and
to organize the army and navy. The Forty (Quarantia) did
justice in all matters of common criminality, but the Ten
ruled, and the Three within the Ten wielded indeed a political
power that was sometimes of the greatest service ; at others the
deadliest injury to the country which permitted such secret

A DOGE OF THE VENETIAN REPUBLIC

FROM A I'AINMNf} BV TITIAN IN THE VATICAN, KOME

" PRINCE CHARMING " 257

methods. And with these three supreme ones acting in
ultimate dependence on the Great Council, and with a
nimierous executive controlling all departments of the national
life, there was little need, as it seemed to his peers in birth
and training, for the most highly honoured officer among
them to have any initiative, any dominating talent, any
personal power at all. So the Dogeship came to be regarded
more as a retiring honour to a statesman worn out in the
public service, than as the investiture of a live man with a
true sovereignty.

This being the case, one understands the much-praised
patriotism of Francesco Donato, who, when he had actually
received a majority of suffrages, after the death of Doge Gritti,
voluntarily withdrew his name in favour of that of Pietro
Lando, saying that longer delay in announcing the Doge was
a danger to the interests of the State. Donato at all times
spoke with facile and fine eloquence, and his words on this
occasion seem to have been a cover to the thought that Lando's
years deserved the honour which, in the ordiaary course of
nature, would fall to himself in turn. At any rate, it happened
in that way ; and Pietro Lando, who had many times been an
ambassador, who as Podesta during five years at Padua had
greatly contributed to the lustre of that University, who as
Lord High Admiral of the Seas had reconquered the coast-
towns of Puglia for Venice, and who had been a Procurator of
St. Mark, reigned for six years. It was while he was Doge
that the extension of the authority of the Council of the Ten
to thej charge of grave matters of foreign policy was signalized
by the dispatch of an envoy with their secret instructions
to arrange a peace with the Sultan of Turkey ; this peace
included the cession by Venice to Turkey of the long-struggled-
for Neapoli in Roumania. In Lando's reign too, the Ten
issued their famous Parte ^ (a.d. 1539), in which the causes for
which it was necessary to establish an Inquisition of State
were very reasonably set out. The need of sudden and pre-
ventive justice to save the country from the attacks of spies
and traitors, and the want of a more extended system of
secret inquiry to prevent the home government remaining too

' Resolution.
17

258 THE DOGES OF VENICE

long in ignorance of foreign machinations of the kind of the
League of Cambray, were met by the constitution of the bqdy
of the one red and two black Inquisitors ; the red one (so-called
from his crimson livery of ducal state) being chosen from the
Privy Council of the Doge, and the black ones from the Council
of the Ten.

To Pietro Lando succeeded Francesco Donato, with whom
came a reign of peace. In all the various charges undertaken by
him for the Republic, Donato had proved himself a man of great
capacity. In 1504 he had gone as Ambassador to Ferdinand
of Aragon, who made him a knight, and in 1509 he was
envoy to Henry viii of England. In his religious views he
typified many Venetian Cathohcs of his own and later times ;
for while persuading his countrymen to be at peace with the
Turk and to surrender cherished colonies of Christian Venice
to the Mahommedan power, he assiduously supported the
Patriarch of Aquileia (Giovanni Grimani) in defending ortho-
doxy against heresy, and favoured the appointment, as officers
of the Venetian Government, of three Savii dell 'Eresia for
stamping out Protestantism. A lover of letters and the fine
arts, he contributed to the embellishment of Venice which
the peace in his reign so greatly favoured. It was at this
time that the Ducal Palace was very largely re-built and made
finally into the magnificent structure it stiU remains. The old
Library, projected by Sansovino in 1536, was definitely begun,
and the Mint {Zecca) finished during the five years he occupied
the throne.

In the twenty-five years following Donato's death, eight
aged worthies succeeded each other as Doges. The only
memorable characters among them were the three last, Alvise
MocENiGO (1570), Sebastiano Veniero (1577), and Nicolo
DA PoNTE (1578). The names of the brothers Priuli (Lorenzo
who was elected in 1556, and Girolamo who succeeded him in
1559), should, however, be remembered as those of wise and
honest old men, of irreproachable conduct. Lorenzo was a
particular favourite of the people, and on his Dogaressa (Zilia
Dandolo) the special honour of solemn " coronation " was
bestowed.

The ceremonies of the progress of " La Priuli " from the

" PRINCE CHARMING " 259

family palace on the Grand Canal to the Church of St. Mark,
were extraordinarily complex and brilliant, and form a striking
example of the style of sixteenth-century pageantry. All
subsequent " triumphs " of Dogaresse were modelled on that
of Zilia Dandolo PriuU, but to very few of her successors were
the supreme honours accorded.

When Doge Pietro Loredano died in March 1570, the
Great Council sanctioned the omission of the ordinary methods
of electing a Doge and ordered the Savii of the Cabinet, and
the Governors of the Arsenal and of the Ofi&ce of Armaments,
not to remove their attention from the more important busi-
nesses they had in hand. The elections of the five Correctors of
the Ducal Promission and of the three Inquisitors in the affairs
of the Doge defunct, were also dispensed with. This unusual
course was followed owing to the urgency of the moment
regarding the relations of Venice with the Turks. So Alvise
MocENiGO, who was installed as Doge only four days after
Ldredano's death, came to his throne in troublous times. He
was in all respects a wise choice. Of illustrious family, he
had served his country long and with great devotion. His
personal virtue was unassailable, and he was soon seen to be
exerting himself to the utmost to deal with both home and
foreign affairs in a manner their gravity demanded.

The situation was indeed grave. The Sultan had demanded
the re-deliverance of Cyprus into Mahommedan hands, and
the answer of Venice had been a haughty refusal and the
dispatch of artillery of every sort, with great quantities of
ammunition, to the island.

One of the first concerns of Doge Alvise Mocenigo, therefore,
was an appeal to all the Princes of Europe — including the
Queen-Mother Catherine de Medici of France and the Czar of
Muscovy — ^for help against the threatened danger to Christian
Power. Of all those appealed to, only the Pope and Philip of
Spain (to whom a future Doge, Leonardo Donato, had been
sent as Venetian orator) responded with any promises of help.
Bitter was the grievance of Venice that France and Germany
were both too much disturbed by struggles between Catholics
and Protestants to have time or means for a Holy War against
the Turk. The assistance of Philip of Spain too, proved

26o THE DOGES OF VENICE

in the end to be grudgingly given. His mind was set rather
on reducing to submission his rebel subjects in Flanders and on
carrying into the Low Countries a religious Inquisition. The
quarrels of the Christians made the opportunity of the Turks.

The humiliating loss of Cyprus with its capital Famagosta
— of rare mediaeval strength and beauty — is not properly an
incident in the actual life of any Doge of Venice, so the story
of the famous siege and capitulation need not be told here.
But the case is contrary in regard to the great sea-victory of
Lepanto, which retrieved the lost fortunes at Famagosta and
turned the mourning city of Venice into a place of public re-
joicing and universal transport of delight.

The " hero of Lepanto " was the same Sebastiano Veniero
who had been sent to Corfu at the first alarm of hostilities, and
who, after the loss of Cyprus, was given with Don John of
Austria and Colonna of Rome, the joint command of the allied
fleets of Spain, Venice and the Holy See. Over two hundred
vessels in aU sailed under the three admirals from Messina,
where their junction was first made, to Corfu, where they held a
Council of War. After a long debate, the opinion of Veniero
prevailed. He maintained that, at all costs, the Turks must
be hunted out of hiding-places and engaged. It would be too
much dishonour if, after so much preparation for war, so much
money spent, so many contributions extorted from the popu-
lace and so many fair hopes excited, they should return home
without even seeing the enemy.

AU the eloquence of Veniero was needed to induce his asso-
ciates in the command to carry out the duty that had been
assigned to them, but his patience more than his eloquence was
required when the allies were again afloat. Going from Corfu
to Cephalonia, and onwards, Veniero was greatly harrassed, as he
himself wrote in a dispatch, by " the insubordination of the
allied Armada, and the difficulty of getting it into action." He
added that the insolence of the Spaniards made him despair.

There was, however, no cause to complain of the bravery
of Don John, when once the enemy was sighted. He was young
and conceited and, unfortunately for those who held the
command with him, of a rank that put him quite above the
necessity of answering to his Government for his performances

" PRINCE CHARMING " 261

or neglects as an Admiral. But when at rise of sun on
7th October 1571, the Christian fleets discovered the Moslem
Armada in the Gulf of Lepanto, and the signal for battle
flew from Veniero's flag-ship, Don John went aboard a frigate
and sailed in and out among his ships, beseeching his men to
acquit themselves well and encouraging them with reminders
of the need there was for good fighting, of the dangers and of
the glory and the magnificent spoils of a successful issue.
" Vittorial Vittoria!" was the cry with which the Venetians
flung themselves on the enemy., They thought only of the glory
and the spoils. As for Veniero, his diligence was a marvel.

As the engagement, which became general almost at once,
proceeded, the natmral impulses of seamen brought the galleys
out one after another from the rocky shoals of the Curzolari
waters, into the open sea. By this process, the line of battle Was
made to extend four mfles, and Ali, the Turkish Admiral-in -chief ,
thought he had the whole of the opposing army before him,
when the left wing had as yet not issued from the Gulf. The
conflict throughout was desperate ; the flag-ships in both fleets
came to grips, and, in the end, the galley of Ali was taken and
Ali himself killed. The slaughter was terrible, the loss on the
Christian side amounting to eight thousand men, among whom
were twenty-nine Venetian nobles. A more than noble in
the Spanish host — Michele Cervantes — lost an arm, but lived
to create the immortal Don Quixote. The number of dead
among the Turks must have been enormous. Seventeen of
their ships fell into the hands of the allies, and many
Turkish frigates went to the bottom of the sea. Five thousand
prisoners were taken, and a number of slaves set at liberty by
the victors. Veniero had no cause to regret his exhortation of
his fellows in command. The victory was to his patriotism and
heroic character, as much as to his strategy and energy. Don
John's princely courage also bore a part.

But the joy of the fleet, sobered by the sight of horrible
wreckage floating in a sea dyed deep with blood, did not match
the ecstasy of Venice when only ten days later, at six in the
evening, the galley dispatched by Veniero to convey the joyful
news to the Doge sailed in upon the lagoon, trailing in the
water the banners of the enemy, displaying on masts and

262 THE DOGES OF VENICE

rigging, turbans and other Turkish garments, and dischargir^
cannon alternately with the cries of " Vittoria ! Vittoria ! "

At these sights and sounds, the people lately plunged in deep
affliction for the loss of Cyprus, rushed in glad excitement to
see the captain of the galley disembark and when he passed on
to wait on the Doge at. the palace, they fell upon each others'
necks and congratulated one another with sobs and smiles.
Then the mob, becoming frantic, rushed to the prisons with
cries of " Liberia ! Liberia .'" But only those imprisoned for
debt were allowed to go free. No one attended to any
business ; the shops were closed and the inscription Per la
morte de Turchi put up on the shutters. No Venetian thought
of leaving the Piazza until nightfall. Only the Turkish mer-
chants deemed it the better part of valour to retire to their
particular quarters. But it was the Jews, rather than the
Turks, in Venice, who were in disfavour at this time. The plot
to regain Cyprus had been attributed by the populace to the
instigation of a Jew adviser of a Turkish general. It was the
year 1571 — the very eve of the day of the writing of Shakes-
peare's plays — and Shylocks, if not OtheUos, were commonly
met on the Piazza and the Rialto.

The news had only to be received by Doge Mocenigo, for
him to issue with the whole of the Signory from the palace,
and to repair to St. Mark for the singing of a Te Deum and the
hearing of a funeral oration for the fallen in the fray.

So great was the press of the people that it was with
difficulty that the Doge made his way across the Piazza.

An order went forth that for four days in the capital and
other cities of the ierra firma, sacred hymns should be sung in
procession. The day of the report of the victory was made a
feast-day. A decree for the expulsion of the Hebrews and
the Moors was also designed, but it did not have effect. The
trophies taken from the Turks were piled into a huge
pyramid in the Piazza, and the cloth-merchants of that vicinity
decorated the shop-fronts with precious tapestries, and draped
scarlet cloth round pictures displayed on walls of houses.
Over all, a huge canopy of celestial blue cloth studded with
golden stars, made a firmament of pomp. At each end of the
Rialto Bridge was reared an arch, displaying the coats of

" PRINCE CHARMING " 263

arms of the Republic and the allies. Before the Church of San
Jacopo an altar was set up, at which the divine offices were
celebrated, and to which were made solemn processions of
clergy, cloth-merchants and musicians from the ducal chapel,
preceded by fifes, trumpets and tambourines.

Splendid illuminations turned night into day; numerous
orchestras sent forth sweet strains, and the final touch was
given to festivity, by sanction to maskers to play their pranks
and go giddily along the ways.

Alvise Mocenigo was still Doge when, two years later,
Henry iii, who had succeeded Charles ix on the throne of
France, passed through Venice and was entertained with a
sumptuousness of decoration, pageant and festivity never
before attained to. Artists among the greatest, not only of
their own, but of all time, assisted in the triumph. Andrea
Palladio made the Arch of Welcome to the Monarch at S.
Nicolo del Lido, and Paolo Veronese with Jacopo Tintoretto
painted ten pictures representing incidents of the royal
festivities. The Arts made their displays and gave their
entertainments in decorated boats, and the festivities were
crowned by the ball in the Sala del Maggior Consiglio^ and
the: bcinquet served in the Scrutinio.

But to the day of feasting succeeded a night of fast.
Plague came again to the city and, in spite of all the provisions
of health-acts and the activities of health-officers, came very
badly. The door to the infection of the East was always wide
at Venice. Isolation hospitals were used to some extent, and
rules of quarantine laid down. But the plague came, and
the plague stayed, and it was not only the poor people and
those living under the more dangerous conditions who were
taken. In the three years in which it decimated the inhabitants,
high and low, over 50,000 persons perished by it. The
numbers of the Maggiori Consiglii were soon so much reduced
that they feared to meet at all. Several of the governmental
departments were closed or removed out of the city. Only
the Doge and his Senate did not give up their tasks or flee.

On the day of the Nativity of the Madonna, which was
that appointed for special intercessions, the Doge himself spoke
to the people, exhorting them to penitence and to trust in

264 THE DOGES OF VENICE

God, and he pledged himself that a great church to the Re-
deemer should be built as soon as the scourge passed. But
not until the third Thursday in July in the year 1577 (the pest
had first claimed victims in August 1575) was the announce-
ment made that the city was clean again. Then on a bridge
of boats made for the special purpose, did a Doge pass over to
the Giudecca, on which island it had been arranged that
Palladio was to build a church, to stand through centuries as a
thank-offering of all Venice. Thus was established the annual
custom of the Doge going by a bridge of boats to the Redentore.
But it was Sebastiano Veniero and not Alvise Mocenigo who
first trod the yielding boards. The Doge who had braved the
plague, died while it yet raged, in March 1577. He had been
well beloved.

When the octogenarian victor of Lepanto ascended the
throne, the Pope's " compliment " was the Golden Rose.
That symbol of papal favour, blessed every year and sent always
to a Prince or Princess whom the Pope has most cause (either
on political or on religious grounds) to esteem, was received
only five times in Venice in all the course of its long history.

Sebastiano Veniero seemed vigorous enough both in mind
and body when he came to the throne, but in less than a
year his reign was over. It may have been that the shock and
annoyance of the fire which consumed a considerable portion
of the interior of the Ducal Palace, with numbers of its picures
and art-treasures, in December 1577, hastened Veniero's end.
He seems, however, to have borne himself calmly immediately
after the outbreak ; for when the men from the Arsenal who
had worked so well in reducing the flames and keeping order
in the palace, refused an honorarium of 500 ducats voted to
them by the Senate, saying that not only the work of their
hands but their very lives were at the service of their lords,
Veniero insisted that they should accept the gift. In deference
to the Doge, they consulted their captain at the Arsenal, but
his opinion being that no recompense should be taken, the
500 ducats were again refused. Such devoted loyalty must
have been gratifying to Veniero as to all Venice, and could
not have failed to help an old hero to die proud of a country
which could breed such honest servants of the State.

SEBASTIAN VENIERO

FROM THE PAINTING BY TINTOJiETTO IN THE UFFIZl, FI.ORENCE

CHAPTER XV
THEOLOGY AND A WOMAN OF WILES

A.D. 1578 TO 1605

IT was characteristic that the first thought of the Venetians
after they saw the fire in the palace extinguished, was how
the damage could be repaired. The question having been
referred to fifteen architects of the capital and various subject
cities, opinions were divided between thoroughly clearing out
and rebuilding the interior, and carefully restoring what was
stUl left of the injured apartments.

NicoLO DA PoNTE, eighty-seventh Doge of Venice, who
succeeded Veniero, had to decide between the two methods.
He approved the one of restoration, with the result that it is
ours to-day to admire the manner in which all the original
effect and grandeur of the Sala del Maggior ConsigUo were
preserved.

Doge Nicolo da Ponte was a theologian and a theorist who,
like many another of the genre, did not allow theory to inter-
fere too much with practice.

Learned, supple and of deferential address, he had already
served his country satisfactorily at the Council of Trent and on
a mission to the Pope to justify the peace with Turkey. The
integrity of his personal life and his graciousness to all men
had won much admiration during governorships of Corfu,
Padua and Udine. His first concern, as Doge, was to lighten
the taxes and, at the same time, to replenish the public coffers
which the recent war had almost emptied. These were praise-
worthy designs, but they could only be carried out by the
substitution of angry complaints against the Emperor of
Germany and all rulers who connived at the incursions of

266 THE DOGES OF VENICE

the Uscocchi and other companies of pirates, for a bold policy of
maritime aggression. Da Ponte had a reputation for modesty
in expressing his views and for willingness to jdeld to opinions
of others, but on the occasion of his reception in Council, of
the ambassadors of the Emperor Rudolph come to deny the
accusations of assisting the Uscocchi and thereby tempting the
Turks to even worse depredations, the theologian Doge spoke
out with great decision. If the miscreants had not been able
to use the Imperial town of Segna as a starting-point, he said,
they could not have become a cause of dispute between the
two governments. Da Ponte had ample proofs to cite of
German connivances, and the ambassadors, we are told, went
away confounded.

But it was an address by the Theologian-Doge in another
year, and to other ambassadors, that most clearly demon-
strated how subordinate to political instincts all the morals of
a true Venetian could be.

The story of Bianca Capello, which led to this demonstra-
tion, is one of those tragedies of human career that are too
full of anti-climaxes, if not too outrageous of all decencies, to
be enacted complete upon a stage. Yet it abounds in dramatic
action and theatrical sensation. The girl's giddiness has been
attributed to her early loss of her mother, Pellegrina (Morosini),
but the temperament of Bianca would have been hardly
chastened even by the truest maternal care.

Her first exploit, of entering, at the age of fifteen, into an
" amorous correspondence " with a Florentine youth who
was in Venice with an uncle who managed a bank, does not
in itself show depravity. Juliet may have her Romeo and
no discredit fall. Bianca must either have been very much in
love or very much oppressed with the dullness of her father's
house, for Pietro Bonaventura (a name of cynical comment
on his story) was poor and she was rich. From her mother's
estate she was to receive 6000 ducats. This fact was well
known. It has been opined, therefore, that Bonaventura was
a fortune-seeker. He became worse ; yet youthful and natural
passion may have swayed him at twenty-four. Bianca was
undoubtedly beautiful and fascinating. The active assistance
given by Pietro's uncle to his love-suit indicates, however,

THEOLOGY AND A WOMAN OF WILES 267

that there was some fortune-hunting going on in the Bona-
ventura family. Suggestion of venahty in Bianca also lies in
the fact that she took with her, when she eloped on the night
of 28th November 1563, all her jewels ; a rich store, doubtless
her mother's before her.

There was hue and cry in the household of Bartolommeo
Capello when the flight of his daughter was discovered.
Piteous was the father's description of the circumstances and
of his grief, in the document drawn up in support of his suit
against Pietro Bonaventura and Pietro's uncle Gian Battista.
The Venetian pleaded for banishment of the Florentines with
the customary penalties, and for the restoration of his child to
a convent. All the redress sought by the injured parent was
awarded him in law, but before the case could be given to
Capello, the lovers were over the border, married and safely
established in the house of the bridegroom's father on the
Piazza of St. Mark in Florence.

Now Pietro's mother was an invalid and the care of her
house was left to a serving-maid. No wonder, therefore, that
old Bonaventura, in order to meet the added expenses of the
keep of the young couple, conceived the idea of dismissing
the servant and making the robust and capable Bianca do
the house-work ! We do not read that the gifted young bride
rebelled against the arrangements of her father-in-law. It
was not Bianca's way to rebel. There was no possibility of
obtaining her dot. Her father had already offered the sum
of it as a reward for the seizure and deliverance of her husband
to Venetian justice. So Bianca found another way of living
in the luxury that was her birthright. One may indeed pity
poor Bianca at this juncture. Her love venture, perhaps in
more ways than one, bad proved a great disappointment.
She had not married to slave. But very soon it was revealed
to her that her husband was as clay in her hands, to be modelled
to any figure she wished to see him cut. Now a woman has no
respect for a lump of formless clay. And there came into
Bianca's ken a lord of the grand-ducal household — Pandolfo
Bardi, Count of Verino — who made love to her. His ad-
vances were received with favour. The Count of Verino was
extraordinarily fond, but Bianca let him discover that she

268 THE DOGES OF VENICE

had higher flights of fancy yet. There was in Florence a
greater than Verino. Francesco, son of the Grand-Duke
Cosimo (de Medici), bad been given for consort the Archduchess
Giovanna of Austria, a princess of remarkable beauty but of
rigid manners ; a devotee and no lover of Tuscany or the
Tuscan Hfe. Francesco neglected this lady and looked else-
where for entertainment and for distraction from the monotony
of unemployment. It was his custom to go about the city
at night unattended, regardless alike of reputation and of
safety. And it came about, through the intermediary offices
of Bardi, that he went often to a dwelling on the Piazza of St.
Mark. There he flung himself into the toils of the fair Venetian
and made her grievances against her father and the Republic
his own. Great was the public scandal when Francesco took
Pietro Bonaventura into his household as his Master of Robes,
and when he sought by the managements of the Apostolic
Nuncio and the Florentine Envoy at Venice, to effect a re-
conciliation between Bianca and her relatives, and to get the
penalties against her husband remitted. The Republic and
the Capello family, however, both remained obdurate, and for
nine years the association of Francesco and Bianca retained
a clandestine form. When seven years had passed, it was
contrived that Pietro Bonaventura should be assassinated.
No one doubted that the crime had been instigated by the
august master of the victim, and Francesco himself subse-
quently acknowledged that he had not interfered with the plan
for removing Pietro, although he had known it existed. Mean-
while Bianca had had a child she named after her long-dead
mother, PeUegrina. But there came no blessing with the name,
although it seems to have been the one thing the abandoned
woman venerated. Some years later the little PeUegrina was
i^ murdered by her own husband — a Ben^ivoglio of Bologna —
because of infidelity. Eleven years had passed since the elope-
ment of Bianca Capello, when the Grand-Duke Cosimo of
Tuscany died and his son Francesco succeeded him. This
was the great opportunity of the widow Bonaventura, and the
new Grand-Duke needed no urging. In the fuU glow of her
beauty, at twenty-six years of age, Bianca was established in
a palace of her own, close to the habitation in which the Grand-

THEOLOGY AND A WOMAN OF WILES 269

Duchess bitterly complained of her lot, and sought her con-
solation in acts of religion and piety. The Grand-Duke had
his official residence with the Grand-Duchess, but Bianca
was Mistress en titre. She was ceremoniously attended at all
festivals. She received the homage of the courtiers, awarded
posts and honours, and performed all the public duties of the
Prince's wife.

The function she most desired to perform, however, she
was unable to fulfil.

The Grand-Duke was desperately anxious for a son, either
a princely heir by his Grand-Duchess, or a natural son to be
invested with the succession. It had seemed more likely that
he would obtain his heart's desire from the mother of Pellegrina
than from the childless and devote Giovanna. Bianca at least
sought the aid of potions, charms and incantations, to bring
about the wished-for birth, but the months went by and no
signs gave promise of a child.

So Bianca resolved to play a trick on her credulous lover.
The farce was long, for there had to be the preparation of
appearances and, when the day came for the introduction into
her palace, by her confidante and a suborned man of medicine,
of a new-bom child, she simulated so realistically the pains
of her supposed situation that the Grand-Duke, who watched
all night by her bedside, was most genuinely moved and forced
by his own emotion to retire from her room at dawn. The
devoted courtiers he left behind as his representatives, for
this was to be counted a dynastic birth, were induced by the
clever arts of the supposed sufferer also to withdraw for a tinje,
and then, when it was full day, the Grand-Duke was sent for
and shown his son ! Great was his contentment, wonderful
his faith. He desired to call the babe Antonio, believing that
his prayers to the saint of that name had brought him this
blessing of an heir.

For a time the ruse succeeded, and when the Grand-Duke
began to have suspicions, the unfortunate mother who had
given up her child was sent by Bianca to Bologna and, on the
road, received a shot-wound from a hidden arquebus, that
brought about her death. It was not safe to serve too well the
widow Bonaventura !

270 THE DOGES OF VENICE

A year later there came another day of opportunity to
Bianca.

The Grand-Duchess died early in the year i^8, and
scarcely were her funeral services over before the question
arose of the marriage of the Grand-Duke with Bianca. He
had quite forgiven her for her fraud ; probably because he
regarded it as an extraordinary proof of her desire to please
him. Yet His Highness hesitated. There were questions of
conscience. A grand-ducal theologian was consulted and,
although grand-ducal, acquitted himself courageously. After
a somewhat rigorous inquisition — the Grand-Duke answering
the many questions with great frankness — the director decided
that since Francesco had promised marriage to Bianca while
his wife was still living and even before the assassination of
Pietro Bonaventura, and for various other causes, their union
could not now be legitimized according to the sacred canons.

Then the Grand-Duke went off to the mountains, resolved
to break with Bianca, but she so persecuted him with letters
and finally htmted him down in person, that he consented
to marry her, and the ceremony took place secretly in the
month of June. When the year of mourning for Giovanna
had passed, the marriage was announced and formal notice
of it sent to the Signory of Venice. With the notice went
directions to the Florentine envoys — the one resident, the
other appointed for the special purpose — to obtain the signorial
declaration that the spouse of Francesco was a " daughter of
the Republic." Without this declaration, the Grand-Duke
felt he could not raise Bianca to the throne. To be a " daughter
of the Republic " in Venice was considered equivalent to
being royal in a monarchical country. The Signory did not, at
first, incline greatly to the Grand-Duke's request, but Bianca
herself attacked the Doge in a series of letters, in which she
protested with solemnity that she did not wish to enjoy her
new dignity so much for her own sake as for the sake of the
intimate union it would bring about between the Signory
and a Prince akeady turned to Venice in affection, who would
not lose an occasion of proving his friendship by deeds. As
for herself, she offered to do all in her power to promote
friendly relations between the two powers, fulfilling equally

THEOLOGY AND A WOMAN OF WILES 271

her duties as a most devoted daughter of His Serenity (the
Doge) and the wife of His Highness (the Grand-Duke), a^d
never failing in her obUgations to that country of which she
would always hold herself to be a true and not unworthy
daughter.

Can one wonder that the patriot Doge — theology and
theories notwithstanding — responded to such blandishments ?
It was good for Venice to stand well with Florence. So to
the ambassador of Francesco, da Ponte in his eighty-fifth
year made an oration which was far from being a dotard's
maundering, although indeed, for policy's sake, its terms were
fatuous and extravagant.

" Signor Ambassador," said the Doge, " when our Republic
has had occasion to demonstrate its affection for and to give
pleasure to the most illustrious and most excellent lord, the
Grand-Duke of Tuscany, it has done it with that prompt
willingness that always coincides with our paternal benevolence
and strongest inclinations towards His Highness, and with the
corresponding love and esteem he has for us ; the which being
now demonstrated so abundantly and in such a confidential
manner, we affirm certainly to your Serenity that a more
gratifying occasion of this could not have been offered, there-
fore say to His Highness, in our name, that since we do not
wish our affection and his confidence ever to be destroyed,
because of this most prudent resolution of his to take to wife
the lady Bianca Capello, a gentlewoman of a most noble
family of this country, adorned with those most illustrious
and singular qualities that do indeed make her worthy of
being thus highly raised, we feel the greatest satisfaction, in
confirmation of which we have, with the Senate, created and
declared her a true and particular daughter of our Republic,
wherefore we render many thanks for the singular estimation
and the particular account taken of us in this important
negotiation, which touches so nearly to the person of His
Highness and to the establishment of his posterity as worthy
of the longest and happiest succession."

And so was Bianca rehabilitated. But her career soon
came to an end. She received the Golden Rose from the
Pope, and became a benefactress to her family and a munificent
patroness of poetry and the arts. Once again she tried to
palm off a spurious son on the Grand-Duke, but was defeated

272 THE DOGES OF VENICE

by the vigilance of Francesco's Cardinal-brother, the heir pre-
sumptive. She died at the early age of thirty-nine, predeceased
by one day by her husband. The Cardinal ordered a post-mortem
of her remains, to prove that he had not poisoned her, and
directed that her body should not find sepulture in the tomb
of the Medicii, but be thrown into a public grave. From
this low resting-place, the Republic did not rescue its " true
and particular daughter."

At ninety years of age, Nicolo da Ponte being prepared
to die, left to his country a curious legacy. It was the written
expression of his views and theories concerning the pohcy
Venice had best pursue, and it contained in detail his estimate
of the character of that Philip who had been titular King of
England by right of his marriage with Mary Tudor, before he
became true monarch of Spain and the Low Countries.

It was needful, so da Ponte asserted, for the Republic
to guard itself particularly from the wUinesses and circum-
spections of the Spaniards and their King. Without a doubt
Philip's whole spirit was for monarchy, possessing, as he did,
so many kingdoms and states and being otherwise made
powerful by the acquisition of Portugal and the Indies. PhUip
was by nature most haughty and most covetous of glory ;
being young, he used to say that if his father, who had been
bom the son of a King comparatively weak, had done so
much, then he who was bom the son of an Emperor, ought to
do much more. There was at present no power except that
of the lord Turk which could resist Philip's. The King of
France wished to, but France had been weakened by her
civil discords and by having allowed the power of the Catholic
King to grow so strong. Kings who aspire to absolute
monarchy detest other princes. Specially detested by Philip
in the depths of his soul, although he dissimulated, was the
Republic that by the grace of God had reigned already for
many centuries and that had the firm and secure founda-
tion of its good and perpetual government. It was needful,
therefore, for Venetians to treat PhiHp with the greatest
deference and dexterity, honouring him with embassies,
according to occasions, and conceding him such favours as
they honestly could, while not revealing their French incUna-

THEOLOGY AND A WOMAN OF WILES 273

tions. They were to keep on good terms with neighbouring
Princes and with successive Popes. But the supreme need
was the raising of the greatest possible number of soldiers
and good generals who, by their authority and protection, could
so establish the Venetians in various parts of the world as to
ensure their having the greatest possible accumulation of gold in
the exchequer, with the ability to raise a loan at 3 or 4 per cent.

This " testament," so Romanin tells us, was deposited
in the archives of the Council of the Ten, and not much con-
sideration was then given to it, although some found fault
with it, as showing da Ponte's French leanings. " But there
came a time," Romanin adds, " and not far off, in which
men had to learn by sad experience that the aged Doge bad
spoken what was true."

Pasquale Cicogna was a man of prudence ajid piety,
who had distinguished himself as governor of Canea in wars
with the Turks. His election, however, was not very popular.
The crowd shouted for Vicenzo Morosini, but when the election
became protracted, Morosini withdrew his candidature, thus
giving evidence of the generous nature which had gained his
popularity. Cicogna was not liberal ; perhaps he was not
rich. He had, however, a pretty sentiment, and as a memorial
that the news of his elevation had come to him at Crociferi,
he had the customary oselle — coins distributed as ducal
largesse at the coronations — stamped with three crosses and
the inscription, Hinc resurrectio ei salus.

The reign of Cicogna proved a reign of peace, but this was
less because of the gentle nature of the Doge than because
the nations of Europe were all preoccupied with other affairs
than those of Italy. France was torn with the conflicts
which went before the triumph of Henry of Navarre, and
Philip II was engaged upon his war on England.

The building of some great churches — San Francesco di
Paolo among them — and the restoration of others, went on
apace in Venice what time the Spanish Armada sailed forth
upon its direful quest. The Ducal Palace, the Library, and
the Mint were decorated with pictures, statues and other
works of art, and the Venetian Academy of Letters was estab-
lished. As a glorious monument, too, of Cicogna's period,
18

274 THE DOGES OF VENICE

if not of his personal artistry, there remains the present
Rialto Bridge.

At the end of his time the people had the Doge they
shouted for. There had never been a more popular choice
than that of Marino Grimani in 1595. He was as lavish
as Cicogna had been niggardly, and the doles of bread and
wine bestowed upon the poor and the ferrymen as soon as his
name was announced, together with the amount of largesse
scattered by his attendants and thrown by the Dogaressa
from a balcony of the palace when he was carried high around
the Piazza at his coronation festival, were further excitements
to the plaudits of the crowd. And it soon became evident
that the Dogaressa Morosina (Morosini) was as great a favourite
with all classes as the Doge. For her, the coronation proces-
sion and fete which had been in abeyance since the time of
Zilia (Dandolo) Priuli was revived. Morosina was the third
Dogaressa to have the birettina pompously bestowed upon her,
but not until Grimani had been two years on the throne
was his consort's festival held. It is not quite clear why
it was so long deferred, but the fact^ that by the Promis-
sione of Grimani' s successor it was prohibited to any other
Doge td have his Dogaressa crowned, indicates that a party
among the patrizii was opposed to honours being heaped on a
lady who had no official status. So far as Morosina was con-
cerned, none could have had more honour done her. The
picture of her, painted for her coronation, shows her to have
been a portly dame. She wore a gown of gold brocade similar
to that assumed by the Dogaressa Priuli forty years before,
but cut low round the neck and otherwise of a design more
fashionable at the hour. Her veil beneath the co%no was a very
long one of white silk. It floated over the state mantle of
gold tissue brocaded with a design of flowers in silver. A cross
of diamonds glittered on her breast, and the note of gorgeous-
ness, both in her attire and in the vestures of her 166 ladies-
in-waiting, was more deeply emphasized than it had been at
the earlier festival. It was the same with the whole procession
and with all the ceremonies and diversions. There were
greater numbers, more show, more magnificence, more cannon-
ading, more music, more device. The companies of the Arts,

THEOLOGY AND A WOMAN OF WILES 275

both upon their flotilla on the waters, and in the galleries of
the palace, set themselves to outdo all former efforts of
expenditure and ingenuity. Multiplied were the mottoes
and inscriptions everywhere. More laudatory and elaborate
were the poems and orations recited ; more costly and rarer
the viands consumed ; more numerous and brighter the lights
that turned night into day. The court that surrounded the
Dogaressa on the Budntoro gained magnificence too, not only
from the added numbers in her suite, but from the presence
of the wife of the Imperial Ambassador, who with her own
daughter and the nieces of the Venetian " Princess," wore
dresses of cloth of silver, with pearls and brilliants. A bizarre
but modish touch was added by the attendance of two fools,
a male and a female, garbed respectively in green silk and silver
and green silk and gold.

Possibly the progress of Morosina (Morosini) Grimani was
not so imaginatively conceived as had already been some
other Venetian Triumphs ; notably the one which had feted
the coming of Henry iii in Alvise Mocenigo's time, and a
marvellous religious pageant devised for the instruction of
Japanese Ambassadors, in the reign of da Ponte. But for all
that, it was a great and significant festival. The Dogaressa
had her own oselle struck, with on one side her effigy crowned
with the ducal biretta, and on the other, beneath a crown,
the inscription, Munus Maurocence Grimana DucisscB Venet,

1597-

When all the customary civic and religious ceremonies had

been concluded, and the Exhibitions of the Arts visited, there
arrived a Nuncio from Rome with Monsignor Claudio Crotta,
the Pope's own private secretary, who brought the Golden
Rose from Clement viii to the Princess Morosina Grimani.
Laid first upon the High Altar in San Marco, it was solemnly
taken thence by the secretary and handed to the Nuncio, who
bestowed it on Morosina, who then and there, in the presence
of the congregation, gave thanks to His Holiness for such a
sanctified and noble gift, and promised to preserve it with
diligence and devotion for the love of His Beatitudinity, pray-
ing the Lord God long to preserve him in f eUcity.

When the Rose had been duly given into ihe care of the

276 THE DOGES OF VENICE

ducal Chaplain, the Dogaressa invited all the clergy to ^.ccom-
pany her to the palace and partake of a banquet in the Sala del
Gran Consiglio. After the banquet there took place a concert,
and after the concert a dramatic scene by Enea Piccolomini
the Sienese. From this representation, the Princess and her
ladies passed to the balcony of the palace looking over the
lagoon to the Island of St. Giorgio, to witness a naval joust
in which the crews of trading ships from England, Holland
and Flanders took part with the good mariners of Venice.

An order of the day, issued by the Senate, ran to the effect
that the Dogaressa ought for all her life to kjeep the blessed
Rose, but that after her death the jewel must be placed in
the Treasury of St. Mark, as had been done with similar gifts
to Venetian Doges from Popes Sixtus iv, Alexander vi and
Gregory xiii. It was indeed a great distinction to be a
recipient of the Golden Rose, but Morosina Grimani — the
motherly soul — was deserving of it personally. It had been
hoped that the husband, and the country of one so honoured
for their sakes, would have also deserved the reward. But
within four years from the time of receiving it, the Doge and
Senate were in conflict with the beatitudinous donor, in a
matter which was very dear to him.

For some time before the accession of Grimani there had
been disputes between the Republic and the papal court
concerning exactions of dues by the Pontiff on vessels entering
Ferrarese harbours, and about claims of the Venetian Signory to
exercise control over the bishops and clergy of their dominion.
There were also differences about the temporal authority
of Clement in Ceneda, and the tax exacted by the Venetians
from voyagers on the Po, for the purpose of paying for the
dredging out of the silt from that river that choked the
lagoon. The Pope had also seen fit to complain of the resid-
ence in Venice of an English Ambassador who was allowed
to have his own religious services in private. The Senators,
while commending the vigilance of His Holiness, had made it
clear that they saw no reason to alter their arrangements,
and they suggested to the Pope that their responsibility in
the matter was as great as his. A Bull issued by Clement in
1 60 1 forbidding the taxing of the goods of the clergy for

THEOLOGY AND A WOMAN OF WILES 277

government purposes, had been justly resented by the Signory,
and when a Nuncio was sent from Rome early in 1604 to
complain of the levying from the ecclesiastics of Brescia, of
contributions other than the " tenth " which the Pontiff con-
sidered was all that was necessary to extort from the clergy
in the way of dues, Doge Marino Grimani withstood the papal
message in a harangue of explicit terms.

It was needful, be said, for the RepubHc to expend largely
for the maintenance of garrisons and the construction of
fortifications. These being in the common interest, should be
paid for by all. It was just and convenient that the clergy
should share in the expense, as they shared in the security.
It was true His Holiness had conceded the tenth, but this had
been so diminished by many exemptions that it was of insensible
benefit. No help had been asked towards the great cost of
the defence of the islands of the Levant, or for the ultimate
charges of defence against the boundary .states of the terra firma.
But where the common security was provided, there should be
common contribution by all citizens.

The Nuncio repUed that it had been impressed upon the
clergy that their exemptions must not be to the prejudice of
the pubUc, and he declared that, although the clergy equally
with the laity, were vassals of the Serene Republic, the
Doge|^should consider it his office to preserve them in their
privileges and not to permit the laity to aggravate them. He
concluded by quoting a case in which the Grand-Duke of
Tuscany, being advised that his taxing of a certain ecclesiastic
was contrary to the will of the Pontiff, made restitution with
the utmost piety. Similar piety was recommended to the Doge
in the present negotiations.

Grimani replied haughtily : —

" We do not know what the Grand-Duke of Tuscany did,
and we cannot govern by the methods of other princes. The
Republic is governed by its own rules, and reason requires that
if the clergy are protected and defended, they ought also to
contribute to the expense that is gone to for their security."

When Marino Grimani died in 1605, his funeral service was
performed in the Church of 55. Giovanni d Paolo. So was that of
Morosina, his wife, in 1613. As a crowned princess, she lay in

278 THE DOGES OF VENICE

state, the birettina on her head, in the Sala dei Piovega, and the
reigning Doge — Memmo — assisted at the first part of her obsequies
though, owing to his great age, he did not proceed with the rest
of the high officials to the church where the services were
concluded. In that church were already many of the ducal
sarcophagi we may now see there, and over the west door
was then, as now, the enormous monument to Doge Alvise
Mocenigo and his consort. But the tomb of Marino and Moro-
sina Grimani is in S. Giuseppe di Castello. It is a mausoleum
resplendent with marbles, bronzes and statuary, and the bas-
relief on the Dogaressa's urn shows us the Bishop offering her
the Golden Rose in the basihca of San Marco.

CHAPTER XVI

A CHAMPION OF STATE LIBERTIES-^DIPLOMACY
AND A LADY OF QUALITY

A.D. 1605 TO 1624

LEONARDO DONATO was of very taU stature, but " the
aggravations of time and the inroads of age " had begun
to give him a stoop when at seventy years of age he
came to the throne. " The aspect of his whole countenance
was grave and inclined to severity, but lighted up by vivacious
and scintillating eyes which manifested the readiness of his
intelligence and the penetration of his mind."

This description of the Doge who succeeded to Grimani
was spoken by the contemporary historian Morosini, who
fmrther dilated on Donato's " singular gentleness and humanity,
which captivated all hearts," on his " disregard for ostentation
and luxury," and on the benignity and courtesy of the Doge
whom the invidious and the malignant accused of " preferring
the mysteries and laws of government to religion, and of being
generally more inclined to policies than was fitting." On the
contrary, Morosini asserted, Leonardo Donato was gifted with
piety and probity. He frequently " purged his conscience with
confessions of his sins, refreshed himself with the angelical
bread, and dihgently performed other Christian acts, binding
together, in indissoluble bonds, affection for his country and
zeal for his religion."

This may have been a partial view, but it was that of a
cultivated man who had special opportunities of judging his
subject. It was, however, some exaggeration to say that, either
by his " singular gentleness " or any other virtue, he had
" captivated all hearts." On the day of his elevation, at the

28o THE DOGES OF VENICE

time of his death, and throughout the six years that went
between, there were always those who criticized and decried
him To begin with, he committed the great fault in the eyes
of the people, of throwing very spare handfuls of money on to
the Piazza at the time of his election . The prince in Venice who
did not give largely, even if he could not afford it, was never
popular. Donato's economy was particularly offensive, be-
cause it followed the generosity of a man who was very rich.

Then we have to compare the words of another writer of the
time with those of Morosini. In the chronicle of Sivos it is
written : " He was esteemed and believed by Christian princes,
and in his own city, for a man of policy, not very devout, and
less religious, and many rejoiced infinitely over his death."
There were, however, others besides Morosini who wannly
praised the Doge Donato. Paolo Sarpi, the Servite Father, who
in view of the continued disputes with Rome was appointed
during this reign theologian and canonist (with stipend) to the
Signory, deemed Donate both virtuous and heroic ; a man of
vivid intelligence, assiduous in all public works.

But to be praised by a professor of philosophy who was also
a man of science and erudition, was another title to condemna-
tion in the opinion of many good people of the day that had
heard the blasphemies of Galileo. When this same Galileo — a
professor of the University of Padua — dedicated his inventions
of the thermometer and the telescope to this same Doge
Donato, the odium of the Orthodox was only deepened. One
is not therefore surprised to read that at Donato's death his
soul was claimed by an evil host, who made their presence
in the Ducal Palace known by shrieks, howls and fearsome
apparitions.

Leonardo Donato was certainly a man of liberal ideas and
advanced views. His piety was not the piety of the Orthodox ;
nor his doctrines the doctrines of the schools. In many things
a diplomatist, his actions were not always politic. Often-
times his clear common sense, as when he dispensed with the
popular celebrations at the time of his election, and his en-
thusiasm for the rights of the Republic — displayed in his
controversies with Rome — made him unpopular and suspected.
He had served the State for many years before he came to the

STATE LIBERTIES AND DIPLOMACY 281

throne in 1606. In 1595 he was the plenipotentiary who con-
cluded a treaty of peace between the Sultan Murad and the
Republic, under the particular circumstance of the concessions
being obtained through the Sultana Basso, who had con-
stituted herself a Protectress of Venice. This Sultana was a
daughter of a Venetian governor of Corfu. As a girl, she had
been taken captive by pirates and transferred to the harem
of Murad. She Uved to exercise a very powerful influence
over both her Sultan and her son who succeeded his father as
Mohammed iii. Later than 1595, and at a time when the
contests about the papal jurisdictions were already fierce,
Donato was deputed to discuss matters with the Cardinal
Borghese, afterwards Pope Paul v. It was then that, referring
to the Venetian habit of haling ecclesiastics before the |civil
courts, the Cardinal said —

" If I had been the Pope on the first occasion, I would have
excommunicated you Venetians."

" And if I had been Doge," responded Donato, " I would
have laughed at your excommunication."

Here, then, was a constitutionalist to follow da Ponte
and Grimani, as a resister of the pretensions of the Holy See !

When Doge Marino Grimani had been in extremis, there
had arrived for him ixpm Rome two Briefs containing threats
of excommunication/unless the ducal orders for the taxing
of the clergy and thysentences of Venetian tribunals of justice
on two priests guilty of heinous offences of cruelty and in-
decency, were at once withdrawn and abrogated. These
Briefs of stormy portent fell unopened from the lifeless hands
of the Doge to whom they were inscribed, and they were not
read until Donato had been for some days on the throne.

So grave did Doge and Council consider their import, that
Fra. Paolo Sarpi, with other doctors and legal authorities of
Padua, was consulted before the reply was sent, by which
the Doge of Venice took up the gauntlet the Pope of Rome had
thrown down. Great had been the surprise and grief of the
Doge and CouncU over the contents of the papal letters, so
the Venetian reply affirmed, for by them laws and constitutions
observed from immemorial times, had been reproved. No
preceding pontiffs had controverted these laws, and to abrogate

282 THE DOGES OF VENICE

them would be to upset the very foundations of the govern-
ment of the Republic. Following the admonition of His
Holiness, men of distinguished piety had been called upon to
examine anew the laws, but none had been found that over-
stepped the sovereign rights of the Republic, or could lessen or
offend against the privileges of the Pontificate. As to the law
that monasteries and churches could not be founded without the
licence of the Senate, that was a provision against new religious
institutions depriving older ones of support. It was a pro-
hibition also against building any edifices, especially in the city,
in such a way as to become a menace to public security The
alienation of the goods of the clergy was designed only to
tax private property by proportionate divisions. The Pontifi-
cate had already forbidden the clergy to bestow the possessions
of the Church on the laity without licence. It was equally
the right of the Senate, therefore, to insist on the goods of
the laity being respected. To this it had to be added, that it
was in the interests of the clergy not to diminish the pecuniary
forces of the Signory which had so much expense to sustain
both on land and sea for the guarding of Christianity. The
Republic that had never been behindhand in favouring and
promoting all pious institutions, would not change its ways
in the future. For these reasons, it was hoped that the
Venetians had not incurred the ecclesiastical censure, since
secular princes exercised the divine right, which nothing human
could derogate, of making laws for all temporal concerns.
The admonition of His Holiness did not apply. The epistle
concluded with the hope that His HoUness, better instructed
by word of mouth of the appointed ambassador then being
sent to him, would not persist in his threats.

At first Pope Paul (Borghese) seemed indulgent towards
his old antagonist in diplomacy, and sent to Venice the
candle blessed by himself, which was a customary mark of papal
favour to a new sovereign. But so much toleration was a bad
example for other Governments. It was feared in Madrid that
the French Court might also become defiant of orders from
Rome, so a Nuncio arrived in Venice to demand again the
delivery of the newly incarcerated priests into the custody of
the Pope.

STATE LIBERTIES AND DIPLOMACY 283

This demand not being at once complied with, a Bull of
Excommunication was launched. But the Senate forbade
the Patriarch (Vendramin), whose elevation the Pope had
refused to sanction because he had not jfirst been sent to Rome
for examination, to allow either the Bull or any other writings
from Rome to be published.

With the Nimcio, who stiU remained in Venice, the Doge
himself parleyed in good round terms.

"Most Reverend Signor," he began, respectfully enough,
" it belongs to the Pope and is in his hands to remedy every-
thing, because it is a serious matter that, while we were
dispatching an Ambassador-Extraordinary, and while negotia-
tions were still proceeding, instead of continuing to treat. His
Holiness within three weeks (pardon these words) brought
himself to this precipice. In goodness name {di grazia) where
are those who wish to sell the clergy's goods, where those who
desiring to buUd churches, have not obtained our licence ? Are
not three churches being erected at this hour in our city ?
And if you do not wish a bishop to be appointed to a city
who will not be acceptable to the lay governor of the place,
why is it not equally just that non? should be allowed to
introduce new confraternities and new religions into our State
without our licence ? In this difficulty a resolution should
not have been hastily taken. It would have been more fitting
to have continued the negotiations and ascertained the reasons
of the Republic."

After these advices, Donato reminded the Nuncio of the
disputes concerning the jurisdiction of the Pope in Ceneda
which had been raging for twenty years and which were stiU
afoot. " Monsignor must understand," he said, " that we
could not possibly be more ardent and resolute, and not only
we who are at the head of the government of the Republic,
but all our nobility and the people in general. Your excom-
munication we hold as null, and have no respect for it what-
ever ; now see how much your resolution imports, and if,
following our example, this one and that departs from you,
those who are left ..."

At this point the Nuncio gave evidence of a real alarm,
but the Doge was merciless.

284 THE DOGES OF VENICE

" Does your Lordship know," he asked blandly, " what
the Pontiff should have done instead of hurling the excom-
munication ? He should have written to us, to the Republic,
an affectionate letter to the effect that His Holiness having
learned that we had made decrees which in his judgment
lacked the usual piety of the Republic, he besought us that,
since to us was reserved the authority to dispense with these
decrees according to our pleasure, we should yield to his
demand that he himself should perform the investiture [of
the Patriarch] ; and in regard to those who desired to build
churches and pious institutions, that we should promptly
concede a licence and give them every favour and help. For,"
declared the Doge in conclusion, " if His Holiness had pro-
ceeded in that manner, we should have brought the negotia-
tions to an end with an equally courteous reply."

As might have been expected, the result of this " straight
talk " was the sending to all the patriarchs, archbishops,
bishops, vicars, abbots, priors, etc., of the Dominion of Venice,
a letter making known that a papal brief against the Doge
and the Republic had been posted in Rome. But even for
this thunder the Prince in Venice had his counterblast. He
too issued a brief in which he protested before God and the
whole world, that the papal manifesto was against all principles
of reason, of Divine Scripture, and of the doctrine of the Holy
Fathers and the sacred canons. " Moreover, it was to the
prejudice of all secular authority given by God, and of all
liberty of the State, as well as disturbing to that quiet posses-
sion in which, by the divine grace, under his own government,
his faithful subjects held their goods and their lives." Then,
declaring the papal brief to be of no value, the Doge recom-
mended all ecclesiastics to continue as theretofore in the
cure of souls and the cult of divine things ; it being " our
firm determination to continue in the holy Catholic and
Apostolic faith and in the observances of the holy Roman
Church," praying the Lord God to inspire His Holiness with
the knowledge of the uselessness of his brief, of the ill worked
by it on the Republic, and of the justice of the Venetian cause."

It now became the duty of the Servite Father to consider
point by point the objections and the scruples, and to advise

STATE LIBERTIES AND DIPLOMACY 285

theSignory " to appeal" — one presumes to a General Council.
But it was not the desire of the Government to go to this
extreme. It wished to give proof of its moderation. Only
when the Jesuits refused to obey the ducal order to continue
their religious offices, they were requested to leave the city,
and an inventory of their possessions was taken. A little
later there was pronounced against them a solem decree of
expulsion as disobbedienti who had concealed and carried
away the most precious things of religion and railed against
the Republic from pulpits outside the Dogado. Other brother-
hoods were subsequently sent the way of the Jesuits, and
there came upon Venice a veritable storm of writings —
apologies, histories, tracts, letters, poems — ^for and against
the Republic. There was a general stirring of men's minds.
No wonder that citizens of other Italian States accused the
Venetians of this time of " Protestantizing themselves."

As the stand of the Doge against the presumptions of
Rome grew bolder, proposals of help poured in from foreign
powers. The States-General of Holland offered aid and the
English Ambassador proposed the formation of a league
between Venice, France, England and some German princes.
It may be said that all Europe, except Spain, was on the
side of Venice. Meanwhile the Republic stood to arms on
land and sea. A Spanish Armada was looked for in the Gulf.
A holy war was indeed declared against the Republic, yet
the Doge defended himself and Venice stoutly, and denied
the charge of heresy.

" We, by the grace of God," he told the Ambassador of
France, " have come to seventy years of age, and have always
lived in that religion in which we received baptism." He
added that the accusations of the malicious did not offend
him personally, but he resented them as directed against the
Republic, knowing they were uttered only to wound the
Government. He hoped to God that their spiteful thoughts
would have no effect. To the Spanish Ambassador, Donato
complained that the Pope had called the Venetians Calvinists.
" What does Calvinist mean ? " he asked. " We are as good
Christians as the Pope, and Christians we'll die, and good
Christians too, no matter what any one says."

286 THE DOGES OF VENICE

By the intervention of the French Ambassador, matters
were eventually adjusted between Venice, Spain and Rome,
on the basis of the Pope first withdrawing the Interdict and re-
ceiving the Venetian Ambassadors. After this, the Signory, with
saved dignity, delivered up the two sentenced priests, sending
to Rome the message that the Doge " did this for the gratifica-
tion of His Most Christian Majesty" (of France), and without
prejudice to his own authority in ecclesiastical jurisdiction.

" I rejoice, most Serene Prince," said a Cardinal to Donato
a little later, " that the day has come in which all the censures
are removed, and I am glad for the benefit conferred on the
whole of Christianity."

The Doge replied that it was truly a day of benefit to
Christianity, because, the censures being removed, there were
also lifted many troubles that oppressed the quiet of the
State. It remained for the Papacy to rescue aU princes from
disturbances, then things would go forward.

Two shocks of disappointment are said to have hastened the
end of Leonardo Donato. He was, however, seventy-six years
old when they befell him. The first was on the occasion of a
formal visit paid by him to the Church of 5. Maria Formosa on
a Feast Day, when he was mobbed by holiday-makers, who
cried out Viva il doge Grimani padre dei poveri ! A venal
populace still nursed the grievance of Donato' s lack of
Grimani's open-handedness. Much incensed by this demon-
stration, Donato stayed away from a similar function at
which he was due shortly afterwards at the Redentore.
Cheated of their quarry the boisterous crowd murmured noisily
that he would " see the day in which he would want to go to
church and would not be able to."

A shock that told upon him even more palpably, was that
administered by the extravagance of his brother Nicolo, who
was building a grand house by the Ponte de Crossechieri, opposite
the Isle of Murano. The Doge told him that with an equal
expenditure he might have raised a palace on the finest site in
Venice, and he animadverted contemptuously on the mansion
that was being built. This outburst proved too great a strain
on his failing forces, and he died shortly afterwards and was
buried in San Giorgio Maggiore.

STATE LIBERTIES AND DIPLOMACY 287

The two next Doges were Marcantonio Memmo and
Giovanni Bembo, both members of case vecckie. It was 330
years since an " old " noble had ascended the throne that was
at this time despoiled by law of its canopy of State. All the
Doges during those years had come of houses ennobled at
the time of or since the war of Chioggia. But Doge Donato
had carried the new principles to the furthest point possible for
a ruler claiming to be of the religion of Rome. So it was
time for those who may be called " Whigs " to go out, and for
" Tories " to come in.

Both Memmo and Bembo were good men and conscientious,
Bembo, a sailor of the old school, stuck to his post well,
although the duties and strains of it irked him sorely. Often-
times, when he trod his council chambers weighed down with
officied cares, he longed, old man that he was, to be on the
poop of some stout vessel tossing on the deep ! Stormy
winds and lashing billows would have made sounds pleasanter
to him than the din of stubborn argument and the murmurs
of factious debate.

Members of the " new " famiUes were again enthroned ;
among them the Nicolo Donato, whose earlier recklessness in
building was compensated for by a later niggardliness that
went beyond that of his brother Leonardo. Nicolo had a
nephew who was an even tighter screw than his uncle, and
during his time of residence in the palace it was a common
thing for the sweetmeats and other refreshments at a state-
party to give out before all were served.

Antonio Priuli (1618) seems to have been a very monu-
ment of dignity and suavity, though he lacked penetration
and originality. He had served his country well in a number
of lesser offices before his election to the supreme one, and
had a reputation for honesty at a time when too many Venetian
officials were dishonest. Originally a man of wealth, he so
impoverished himself in the public service that he had to
borrow money to the sum of 8000 ducats to meet the expenses
of his coronation, which included throwing among the people
2000 ducats in small change and 1000 in gold. The festivities
of his accession were marked by lavish illuminations and a
generous distribution of gifts. His presents of wine, bread.

288 THE DOGES GF VENICE

game and other meats, were on such a scale as to be considered
" the sign of gratitude in a true prince towards a faithful
people." The marriage of his son to Franceschina Dolfin,
who had a dot of 200,000 ducats, besides an inheritance from
her mother of more than 300,000, seems to have been a great
help in repairing the ravages on his fortune. But the quality
that kept him firmly enthroned in the general estimation, was
his gift of speech-making. He always found the right words
in which to explain or to disguise his own views and feelings,
and those of the Senate and Cabinet.

There was indeed great necessity in his time for a Doge who
could hold at arm's length as well as command respect in
foreign envoys and Venetian appellants to the justice of their
own laws. Not among foreigners alone had it become a
fashion to designate the " potent, grave and reverend Signors,"
" pantaloons." On many occasions these ancients did indeed
appear to be fussy, pompous old gentlemen, who took great
credit to themselves either for finding out nothing at all or
for discovering plots and counterplots that did not exist.
Yet the threads of some conspiracies' of serious design and wide
ramifications came into the hands of Priuli and his govern-
ment. It was ascertained that Ossuna, the Spanish Viceroy
of Naples, an arch-eiiemy of the Venetian power, had agents
by the score in Venice, who worked for the sending of squadrons
from Naples and Sicily to scour the Gulf, bombard the
Piazzetta and land troops on the Lido and the Molo. There were
also groups of treacherous malcontents among the Venetian
aristocrats themselves, who — some for the Spanish interest and
some from jealousy of more successful families, or from various
personal ends and ambitions — conspired against the integrity
of their own country.

The system of voting for the Doge, for membership of
the Senate and of the Council of the Ten, for Savii (Sages
or Experts) of various departments, and for the Three
Inquisitors of State, had become extremely complicated.
All sorts of additions to and refinements of the processes of
ballot had been introduced from time to time, with the object
of making favouritism and connivance impossible. But in the
time of Antonio Priuli, so demoralized had a large body among

STATE LIBERTIES AND DIPLOMACY 289

the maggiorii become, that there were many who possessed
themselves of, and dropped into the vases of collection, more
voting balls than they were entitled to, and who, by other
elaborate arrangements and previous understandings with one
another, contrived to defeat more popular and better qualified
candidates for posts that were filled by ballot.

Among those who had succeeded in entering the Senate
in this unworthy manner was one Giambattista Bragadino.
His custom of keeping the Spanish Ambassador — Bedmar —
informed of all that passed in Venetian councils, was dis-
covered by a brother of the Frari, who noticed the constant
appearance of two men in a chapel of the great church, one
always following the departure of the other. Both knelt
devoutly during their stay on a particular stool. Quiet
observation revealed the secret of this successive devotion.
The first man was Bragadino, the second Bedmar's secretary ;
and the Venetian always pushed into a slit in the stool, a
paper for the Spaniard containing political information.
The taking of the polizze thus discovered to the Doge, led to
a summoning of the Senate. Bragadino, who came with the
rest, was asked to write some notes, and the comparison of his
writing with that of the polizze in the hands of the Doge made
doubt of his guilt impossible.

" I am worthy of death ! " was his only exclamation, as he
was led from the senate chamber to the ducal prison. Con-
fessing aU, he was hanged between the two columns.

The Spaniard who had served his own King well, had no
shame for tampering with the loyalty of a subject of the Doge.
Said Priuli to him, when he came to take formal leave —

" The Republic maintains always the same good disposition
towards your master, but it were truly desirable that jealousies
should be put aside, and that all ministers should promote
quiet."

The Ambassador's reply was pert and proud—

" I can tell your Signory that I am well able to continue my
offices, wherein I have always sought to encourage these good
dispositions. As to the ministers, I do not see how they could
possibly have existed in greater quietude than has been the
case."
19

290 THE DOGES OF VENICE

So Spain had the last word of this argument. But the
dignity of Doge Priuli was unruffled, even though Bedmar
treated him as a " pantaloon."

In interviews about the same time with both the French and
the English Ambassadors, we catch clearer notes of the elo-
quence of this Doge. His words to the Englishman — Wotton
— have the greater interest for us. Among them may be
quoted first those spoken to the secretary of the Ambassador,
when sent by his master to complain to the Cabinet of the in-
sufficient state of the reception accorded him upon returning to
his charge in Venice, after an absence of some weeks. Wotton
had, as was customary, proceeded on a certain day — in
this case 8th March 1621 — to the Isle of San Giorgio, and
awaited there the coming of a body of the Senators to fetch
him to Venice. Instead of a possible sixty, not more than
eighteen or nineteen " fathers " of the Republic waited on
him. It was a time when all Ambassadors of the King of
England were a little touchy concerning their due meed of
honour from foreign Sovereigns. In his sentimental ambition
to be a peacemaker, James i was neglecting to make himself
feared in Europe, as he had need to be. Moreover, his desire to
gain Doge Priuli as a friend and banker for his son-in-law the
Palatine, which desire it had been Wotton's chief mission to
fmrther, gave the Venetians at this time no cause to be anxious
about England's friendship. If it had not been for the Spanish
marriage, which the would-be universal peacemaker was seeking
to arrange for his son Charles Prince of Wales, the Doge of
Venice might not have deigned even to reply to the English
secretary's request that two lords of the Signory should
forthwith call upon Ambassador Wotton, and explain in the
name of the others that their neglect had been due solely to
urgency of private affairs. This course, the secretary was in-
structed to say, would satisfy both the Ambassador and the
dignity of the King, his master. So the Doge replied to the
emissary of Wotton in terms explanatory and void of offence,
while he guarded against any admission of default on the part
of Venice.

Beginning with the usual compliments of courts, Priuli
declared that of all crowned heads the Republic esteemed and

STATE LIBERTIES AND DIPLOMACY 291

loved none so much as the King of England. Englishmen were
welcomed to Venice as their own children. A larger number of
Senators than usual had been chosen for Wotton's reception, but
owing to various accidents the attendance of many had been
prevented. Public sentiment, however, was unchanged. All
welcomed the Ambassador again most gladly, and if necessary
could prove how gladly.

A few days later, Wotton came himself before the Doge in
council, to give an account of his negotiations in Germany re-
garding the restoration of the Palatinate to the Palatine and
ex-King of Bohemia. He announced himself as assured of
friendly feeling, and willing to waive the matter of his reception.

The Doge replied : " We are gratified that your Excellency
accepts the assurances of the Republic. In a Republic and in a
senate of aristocrats, things cannot be estimated for the same
as they are elsewhere. The receptions of the papal Nuncios
and of the Emperor's Ambassadors have frequently been
similar. We pray that God may grant all prosperity to His
Majesty and to His Highness, the Prince."

Then there was another time when the English Ambassador
brought a letter to His Serenity which bore the superscription —
" FRpDERicK, King of Bohemia, Count Palatine of the
Rhine, etc., to Antonio Priuli, Doge of Venice." It described
how Frederick had lost the Palatinate, as well as the Kingdom of
Bohemia, through the manoeuvres of Austria and Bavaria, and
explained that he needed money to pay for troops, additional
to those his father-in-law. King James, would provide. To
obtain this money he was applying to his friends in Europe,
" coming in the first place to your Serenity . . . asking you to
help us in our dire necessity, by which means you will be pro-
.tecting yourselves against the peril of an Austrian and Spanish
invasion."

The reply of Priuli to this appeal and to the Ambassadorial
comment on it, was phlegmatic in the assurance of unshaken
sovereignty- He had listened attentively to the particulars
about the Palatine, and wished him all prosperity. A formal
reply would be sent to his requests. The Doge then added
more conversationally, " We must say that all these motions
and armaments have compelled the Republic herself to arm

293 THE DOGES OF VENICE

strongly and incur very heavy expenses. We are doing our
utmost, and if the King of England makes resolutions befitting
his greatness, great results will follow."

The formal reply was long in coming, however, and again
and again Wotton appeared before the Doge, with requests from
his King for aid for the Palatine. Priuli replied always in the
same strain. But the most suave of all his ducal utterances
were those of 14th April 1622, when he received an English-
woman who, as far as is known, is the only lady of any nation-
ality who ever addressed a Doge of Venice in Council.

The appearance of the Countess (Alethea) of Arundel and
Surrey before Antonio Priuh, came about in this way. There
had been in London from 1609 to 161 5 an Ambassador of
the Signory named Antonio Foscarini, who had already
served his country with distinction in France, at Chioggia
and in the capital. He had also won the good favour of
the Inquisitors of State, by informing them of revelations of
political plans to a Papal Nuncio, and assisting them in dis-
covering the channel through which these revelations had
flowed.

At the Court of James i, Foscarini received an honourable
welcome, and became a persona grata. He was stiff-mannered,
yet ingratiating; capable of serious work and discussion,
and earnest enough when important concerns had to be dealt
with, but flippant too, in an indolent way, and of easy morals.
His talk at his own board, and when he deemed himself among
intimates, was satirical to a point that was unbecoming in
an Ambassador of a renowned government to a great King.
But the Queen (Anne of Demnark) was fond of entertainment,
and liked the company of courtiers of bizarre qualities. So
she too made much of Foscarini, and he might have remained
in favour with both Majesties had there not been sent to him
from Venice a secretary who was more entertaining than
himself. This secretary — Muscomo — played on one or more
of the curious instruments of music with which Venice was,
at the time, supplying the world. He sang also. The Queen
and her ladies were delighted with this second Rizzio, and
Mrs Hay, the heiress-wife of King James's Scottish favourite,
took the young Italian under her special protection.

STATE LIBERTIES AND DIPLOMACY 293

Now Mtiscomo was one of those who served under the
Venetian Government of his day, for the purpose either of
earning Spanish, gold by sale of his country's secrets, or of
taking pay from the Inquisitors of Venice for accusations of
treachery and Spanish leanings against his betters in the public
service. It was a natural sequence that Muscorno should both
denounce Foscarini as a politician and grow jealous of him
as a man. The Ambassador, who had at first been pleased
with bis secretary, soon found him unsatisfactory, and he put
the touch to Muscomo's smouldering spites by refusing some
letters of recommendation he asked for. Foscarini's further
refusal to pursue a dismissed servant whom the secretary
had belaboured for threatening to publish the secrets of his
dissipated Hfe, set Muscorno's hate blazing higher. The
servant, a half-witted Scot, retained in the household of the
Ambassador as a " Fool," had retaliated by threats to kill the
secretary. Believing the threats to be only the braggadocio
of a childish mind, Foscarini banteringly encouraged them,
with the result that the poor young zauy eventually purchased
two daggers. This was too much for Muscorno. He fled pre-
cipitately from his master's house, and presented a memorial
to the King, accusing the Ambassador of intention to take his
life. Mrs. Hay backed up the accusation.

The result of all this was that when Foscarini presented,
on his side, a demand that Muscorno should be proceeded
against as a man steeped in vice, and guilty of inteUigence
with the Spaniards and of machinations against his (the
Ambassador's) hfe, the King would not allow a case to be
brought, and Foscarini was greatly afflicted, fearing for his
own reputation. Excited by his triumph and seized by a
greed of vendetta, Muscorno lost no opportunity of defaming
Foscarini, and he contributed to a libel, entitled Detti e fatti
dell ambasciator Foscarini. He also asked for and obtained the
licence of the Council of Ten to return to Venice on important
political business. In Venice, Muscorno brought the blackest
accusations against his late Chief, saying that he was a man
of lascivious life, a scoffer at religion, a defamer of the
English Queen, and further that he had supplied other Govern-
ments with copies of his letters addressed to his own.

294 THE DOGES OF VENICE

The CouncH, of the Ten took the gravest view of Muscomo's
statements, and empowered the Inquisitors to inquire into the
matter and discover the truth.

Foscarini was recalled and went to take formal leave of
the Queen in the palace at Greenwich. Seated on a throne
beneath a canopy of state, Queen Anne expressed her regret
for his departure, and, at the close of the audience, told him
she would be pleased to see him again before he left the
country. He also waited on Henry, Prince of Wales, with whom
he had an interview as cordial as one of ceremony can be. Yet
some inf onnations gathered in France as well as in England,
looked black for Foscarini. The worst of all was that copies
of the Ambassador's letters were certainly in the hands of
many persons of rank, of different nationalities. In the end,
however, all was explained. A French informer had obtained
these letters from Foscafini's valet, during absences of the
Ambassador from the capital. The Frenchman had sat up all
night copying them, and had thus provided himself with pro-
fitable stuff for sale. The valet, who had been detained in
prison with his master at Venice for the year of the inquiry,
was sentenced to lose his right hand and to be imprisoned for
twenty years in a dungeon. But Foscarini, though cleared
of all suspicions of political treachery, was kept in durance
for two years longer, while the charges concerning his scan-
daloiK and irreligious life in England were inquired into. In
the end these too were held to be without foundation, and
Foscarini came forth a free man. Muscomo received the
sentence (light enough for those times) of two years confine-
ment in the fortress of Palma. Liberated, Foscarini gave
to the Doge and Senate a detailed account of his embassies
in France and England, and of the " persecutions " and
" diabolical intrigues " that in London and Venice had
" calumniated his innocence." His relation was simple but
impassioned, and in it he prayed God to make His Serenity
and the most excellent Council of Ten true executors of the
Divine Will.

Whether that prayer was answered as Foscarini would
have had it, or no, the utterer of it had yet to receive condem-
nation at the hands of the Doge and the Ten. Traps for his

STATE LIBERTIES AND DIPLOMACY 295

feet were soon set, although until Muscorno was again at
large no actual proceedings were taken. By the time the
vindictive one crept once more on Foscarini's trail, there had
come to Venice, to Uve partly in the Palazzo Mocenigo and
partly at Padua, the Coimtess of Arundel and Surrey. The
Catholic inclinations ever strong in the Howard family, had
led both the Earl-Marshal and his lady to desire not only a
residence for themselves but also a university for their sons
in a land where they would be freer to follow those inclinations.
The Earl of Anmdel and Surrey seems to have travelled about
more than his Cottotess. She remained always near the sons,
about whose education both parents were anxious. While in
Venice, Lady Arundel, as was natural, received in her palace
many persons of distinction who formed a coterie of intelligence
and politeness about her. Antonio Foscarini, however, was
not of her circle. He had neglected to pay his formal respects
to her in Italy, as he had previously neglected to pay her
ceremonious visits in England. But among her visitors was
one Girolamo Vano, a common informer, although unknown by
the Countess to be of that occupation. Matters were quickly
planned and carried out, to the end that as Foscarini came from
a meeting of the Senate, one evening in AprU 1622, a deft-
handed sbirro threw a cloak over his head. He was seized
from behind, arrested and taken to prison, by order of the
Council of the Ten. The secret charge against him was that
he had constantly met the representatives of foreign Govern-
ments, by day and by night, in their houses and elsewhere,
both within and without the city, and that, by word of mouth
and written communications, he had published the most
intimate secrets of the Signory, ^nd received money for them.
It was averred too, before a court consisting of the Doge,
his Pfivy-CounciUors, members of the Ten, the Avogadori
and three State Inquisitors, that Foscarini had gone at late
hours of the night, in extravagant garments of disguise, to
the palace of " the Arundel," a lady of spirit and of manieroso
trattamento, to "practise" with a certain secretary, Cesareo,
who retailed all his information to the Spanish Ambassador.

The Court of Inquisition was not formed to clear Foscarini ;
rather the aim of nearly every member of it seems to have

296 THE DOGES OF VENICE

been to make an example of him. Treachery existed in the
State and trafl&c in secrets and documents was known to be
brisk and to be carried on by many who should have been the
least suspected of all. It was far from being impossible that
Foscarini had been corrupted. Suggestions of guilt were proofs
to men whom their offices, more even than their tempera-
ments, trained to be suspicious and censorious. By ten votes,
Foscarini was condemned to be strangled that night in prison,
and to be hanged by one foot between the two columns when
morning came, remaining thus exposed until evening. Five
of his peers had voted for the lesser sentence of a life-incarcer-
ation, and two had been in favour of a secret death. The
severest penalty was exacted, and the " example " so much
desired of the Inquisitors made.

No sooner was the sentence executed than there flew the
rumour that the Countess of Arundel was to be asked to depart
from Venice within three days. Ambassador Wotton, who
was not running very straight himself, caught at the oppor-
tunity of removing the clear-sighted Alethea from any post
of observation of his devious doings, and sent a messenger
to her at Padua to warn her of the talk about her in Venice, and
to advise her not to return to her palace there, at least until
he had time to communicate with her again. The Countess,
who had been residing for a time at a villa near Dolo, was
actually in her coach at Lizzafusina on her way back to Venice,
when Wotton's secretary found her. Her own advice was of
quite a different kind from the Ambassador's, and she told
the secretary that she would return at once to the Palazzo
Mocenigo. Arrived in Venice, she disembarked at Wotton's
door and entered into immediate conversation with him. He
tried, at first, to talk of generalities, ignoring the anxiety in
both their minds. But the Countess went straight to the
point with the demand for confirmation of what the Am-
bassador's secretary had told her. Wotton averred that it
was quite true, and that the decision to expel her had been
taken because it was known that her house had been fre-
quented by the Papal Nuncio, the Secretary of the Emperor
and the Cavaliere Foscarini. The Countess was amazed by
this false report, and swore to Wotton as the Ambassador of

STATE LIBERTIES AND DIPLOMACY 297

her Sovereign, that she had never received any one of the three
persons named in her house. No diplomat had been there
except himself and the Resident of Florence. The matter
concerned the English name as well as her own, so she would
go the Cabinet to-morrow morning to clear it up. She would
be glad of the assistance of the Ambassador, but if he did not
wish to accompany her she should go alone. This decision did
not commend itself at all to Wotton, and he tried hard to turn
the Countess from her purpose, saying, among other things,
that time should be taken to discover the authors of the rumours,
and that it was too late that day to make an application for an
audience. The latter argument was the only one the lady
deigned to heed. She went on to her house on the Grand
Canal, but early the next morning was again at the Am-
bassador's and again insisting that steps must at once be taken
to extinguish a rumour so scandalous and prejudicial to her
own honour and that of her family and nation. Without any
delay she would have public acknowledgment of her inno-
cence, the Ambassador must therefore send at once to demand
audience of the Doge. Quite against his will, Wotton was
constrained by the excited but dignified lady to accompany
her to the Council Chamber, where, seated on the right hand
of the Doge, the ordinary place of the Ambassador, to which
Wotton himself conducted her, her Ladyship announced her
errand in English. While the Countess was speaking, the Am-
bassador stood on the left of the throne, but it was seated,
though still to the left, and presumably with his hat on as the
representative of a Sovereign, that Wotton translated with
modifications all that the lady had said.

Omitting any reference to his own message, he stated that
her Ladyship, upon returning the day before to her house in
Venice, had found there a group of friends discussing the fate of
the unhappy gentleman who had ended his days at the hands
of the executioner. They had told her that common report
traced a share in the affair to her, and that it was being debated
whether or not some intimation should be made to her. They
thought she would be well advised to secure her reputation.
Feeling, therefore, what was due to her birth and to her position
as wife of the Earl-Marshal of England, and conscious of her

298 THE DOGES OF VENICE

own integrity, her Ladyship had prevailed upon him to intro-
duce her to His Serenity, to state the facts to the Cabinet
and to receive the Doge's commands. Far from wishing to
escape, she desired to prove her sincerity and vindicate her
honour by submitting herself to the Cabinet.

The Doge replied that the matter was entirely new to him.
Then turning from the Ambassador to the lady, His Serenity
continued : " As the Countess understands our tongue, we
can ourselves assure her that there has not been a syllable or
shadow of a question upon the matter which the Ambassador
has propounded. We rejoiced to see your Ladyship this
morning and thought that you had come to ask some favour.
We regret greatly the reason which has brought you here,
but assure you that there has not been the slightest idea of any
such thing. It was possibly started by some miscreants who
wished to cover themselves. Foscarini has expiated his pre-
vious malpractices ; that is the end of him. Your Ladyship
enjoys the esteem of the Republic, which is appreciative of the
compUment paid to Venice by your residence here."

Other compliments followed. The Doge rejoiced to com-
municate affairs to His Majesty King James and to the present
Ambassador, whose friendly disposition was so well known.
The Ambassador thanked the Doge ; the lady would depart
much relieved. The Republic had no greater friend than
herself and her husband. She placed herself entirely in the
Doge's hands. His Serenity was gratified and did not fail to
add that if the Ambassador could give him a clue to the origina-
tors of the lies, they should be punished severely. But Wotton
had no information upon which more " examples " of Venetian
justice could be hanged in the public sight, so the Ambassador
and the Countess withdrew, as they had entered — ceremonially
— her left hand resting on his right.

The feelings of the two in apparent unity, were very different.
The Countess was undoubtedly, as she asserted, very pleased
with the result of the audience. Wotton, on the other hand,
was thoroughly displeased that the Doge had convinced the
lady of the friendship of the Republic, and determined her
to stay in Venice. Neither of them knew of a dispatch, already
on the way, by which Lady Arundel — either by her husband

STATE LIBERTIES AND DIPLOMACY 299

or by her King — was recalled to England. There were many at
home who disapproved of her long stay in a Catholic country,
and who believed her conversion to Roman Catholicism had
taken place as and when was stated in a pamphlet recently pub-
lished in France. There were some, too, who said that the
Doge was circumspect and knew how to dissemble !

Not alone in England was the idea current that Antonio
Priuli had spoken more prudently than frankly to the Coimtess.
Wotton himself believed, or affected to beUeve, that the Doge
bad schooled himself to speak graciously, and that, far from
being taken by surprise, he had delivered a speech prepared
by discussions in the Cabinet. In truth, the Doge was not
so ingenuous as he seemed. In Venice, as in London, Lady
Arundel and her husband were suspected of Spanish leanings,
but her nationaUty and her rank forbade the voicing of any
suspicions unless they could be most circumstantially, if not
directly, proved.

The satisfaction of the Countess was not of long duration.
Wotton soon damped it by telling her his views about the
Doge's sincerity, and she was angry again because his words
and manner confirmed her earlier thought that it was the
Ambassador himself who had originated the report about
her. She could not feel certain that he would not travesty
the words of the Doge in writing to his own court, and she
was determined to wring from him an acknowledgment of
his true share in the matter, as well as to obtain from the
Doge a written confirmation of all that had been said at
the audience. She had already sent a full account of every-
thing to her husband in England, and was planning to entrust
a " special gentleman " to take her version of the affair to
King James, when the Italian steward of her household —
one Vercellini, a gentleman about whom it would be inter-
esting to know more, though a good deal is revealed — told
a Venetian agent of the Council of Ten how matters stood
with his mistress, and how desirous she was of a written
statement of the Doge's exoneration. It is almost certain
that Vercellini's remarks were of design. He probably knew
the real occupation of the acquaintance he confided in. In
any case, the Council acted on the information, for only two

300 THE DOGES OF VENICE

days after the receipt of it, a copy of a special decree of the
Senate concerning the Countess of Arundel was forwarded
to the Venetian Ambassador in England and a resolution
carried : " That the Countess of Arundel and the English
Ambassador be summoned to the Cabinet and the following
read to them."

" The following " was a decree of the Senate, beginning :
" The purity and candour of your Ladyship's manner of life
cannot be disparaged in the slightest degree by slanderous
reports," and it went on to say that although the lady might
be reasonably convinced by the Doge's words that the Venetian
Government recognized her noble qualities, it was desired
further to assure her by a decree of the Senate, that the news
of so false an imposture was the greatest surprise. The
Senate further expressed the wish that measures " which on
every account should be severe," might be taken against such
persons as had made the accusations out of their own ill will,
and ended with the hope that her ladyship would long enjoy
her sojourn in the city, where she would always be welcome.

While this decree had been preparing in the Senate, the
Countess had been busy writing a letter of her own to the
Doge and drawing up a long statement of facts which she
put before Wotton for signature. It transpired afterwards
that many of these facts had to be modified and some ex-
pressions altered to satisfy the scruples of the Ambassador
who, even by what was left, was shown to have cut a sorry
figure in his endeavour to hustle the lady out of the country
and thus incriminate rather than protect her. There is little
doubt that Wotton would have suppressed the document if
he cotild, and that he had plans of his own concerning its
presentation. But the communication of Vercellini had
provided against manoeuvrings of the Ambassador.

Wotton seems to have felt no anxiety when the Senate's
secretary (Lionello) came to him on the evening of 28th
April (1623) to invite him to appear before the Collegia on the
following morning, but when he heard that the Countess was
also summoned, Lionello noted that he " changed coloiu:."
Lady Arundel herself " welcomed the favour of an audience."
Can one doubt that the intention of the Cabinet was to con-

STATE LlfeERTIES AND DIPLOMACY 30T

found the designs of the English Ambassador, while through
favour to an exalted English subject, it kept the goodwill
of the English King ? Wotton, however, had to make the
best of a bad business for himself, and the next day found
him and the Countess again in the Collegio and " seated as
before." Lady Arundel had her own letter and the signed
statement in her hands, and the Ambassador signalled to her
nervously to present them at once to the Doge. His Serenity
intercepted the sign and remarked reprovingly, " We must
first read to your Excellencies the deliberation of the Senate,
why we sent for you, and then we wiU wiUingly hear what
you have to say "

The decree of the Senate was then read. The Countess and
the Ambassador listened to it with equal attention, although
it was remarked that very different effects were produced
upon one and the other. When the reading was finished,
Lady Arundel first spoke in English. Wotton followed with
an interpretation. She thanked the Doge warmly for the
great honour done to her, and took consolation from the
thorough testimony to her innocence. She begged their
Excellencies " to pass an office " with the King, her master,
as the nmiour might have spread and Wotton had been
himself deceived. The Countess would present a compendium
of the whole affair.

Lady Arundel then rose and presented the two papers
she held to the Doge, whereupon the Ambassador urged that
it would suffice to read the letter, as the other was a very
long docmnent. The lady, however, signified by gestures
that she wished both to be read, and this was done.

The letter, bearing the signature Alethea Arundel and
Surrey, ran as follows : —

"Most Serene Prince, — My devotion towards the
Republic could not be better expressed than by my coming
with my two sons to Hve here for so long a time, with my
King's consent. I shall always preserve an indelible memory
of the favours accorded to me and to my sons, especially
the last on the 22nd of April, concerning my honour and
reputation. But as the false rumour against me seems to
gather strength, I have thought it necessary to procure a

302 THE DOGES OF VENICE

relation from the English Ambassador, which I hand to your
Serenity, and which I desire my King to see and the rest of
the world, so that the benignity of your Serenity and my
innocence may both appear at the same time. But first I
thought it my duty to show it to you, begging you to acquaint
His Majesty with my innocence, and to provide for the
extinction of the false report which is still current against me."

The compendium contained references to the reports of
Foscarini's visits in disguise to the house of Lady Arundel,
and of the supposed intention of the Senate to banish her
from Venice. It referred also, though rather ambiguously,
to certain affronts and dangers that might have fallen on
the servant Vercellini, " simply," as the Countess believed,
" because he was a Venetian subject." There was in it, too,
a detailed story of Wotton's warning to her ; of the mode of
her return to the capital ; of the subsequent discussions
between herself and the Ambassador; of their first audience
with the Doge, with transcriptions of His Serenity's address
on that occasion, and of Lady Arundel's reply.

This document was signed " Henry Wotton," and being
read, the Doge remarked that with regard to the desire of the
Countess that they should write to England, he would tell
her of the secret decree of the Senate directing the Ambassador
in England to assure the Earl-Marshal and everyone else, that
nothing had happened to alter the high esteem the Senate and
the whole city had always entertained for the Countess.

Wotton who was very fidgetty all through the audience,
here interposed, saying that the communication to be made
by the Ambassador to King James ought to conform exactly
with the paper just read. The Doge rephed significantly that
orders had been given for the truth of the matter to be reported.
Wotton broke in again with — " I have to justify myself in this
matter. ... I heard on very good authority that when
Foscarini was asked about his night walks, he said he had
been occasionally to Lady Arundel's house for of&cial reasons."
Upon this the Doge and Councillors present, one and all,
declared there was not a word of truth in the reports of
Foscarini's " night walk," and that neither the Coimtess
nor any English person had been mentioned at the trial.

STATE LIBERTIES AND DIPLOMACY 303

Now this was not true, as records of the depositions of
witnesses have revealed to us since, and as Wotton must have
known by inference at the time. But the Ambassador
could do no more than accept the disclaimers, and try to
appear relieved by them. He began a long rigmarole about
attributing the slander to those who wished to put the blame
of bribery on others, but the Doge ignored the remark and
turned to the Countess —

" We hope you wiU rest as satisfied as we shall always try
to render you," he said in the grand manner he so well assumed.
" As a sign of our good feeling, we have instructed two of our
Savii, at the approaching feast of the Ascension, to place a
gaUey at your disposal, which we hope you will accept."

The Countess rose and expressed her thanks, and the
Ambassador assured the Cabinet that her ladyship was
overwhelmed with obligations. " She devotes herself and
her sons," he said in the style of courtly compliment then in
vogue," to the service of your Serenity, and will always pray
that the Serene Republic may only end with the elements, and
remain for ever glorious and powerftd."

The same evening the " obligations " of the lady were
fvirther increased by a present from the State of wax candles
and sweetmeats, upon which 100 ducats of the public money
had been spent. Lionello, the secretary, who was the bearer
of the gift, reported that the Countess seemed entirely satisfied
and that, as he came down from the staircasQ from waiting
on her, the steward (Vercellini) had told him that she was
indeed as contented as the Ambassador was confused.
Vercellini had added that he feared Wotton had ruined his
prospects at court by this business. These and other remarks
of Vercellini prove that it was a constant aim of his to get
Wotton discredited. What other aims the Venetian had,
it is stiU difficult to determine, but that he was steward to
Lady Arundel, as he had previously been steward to the
Venetian Ambassador in London who followed Foscarini there,
for political purposes of his own, is more than probable. It
appears indeed that he, the servant, if not Lady Arundel, the
mistress for the time of the palace on the Grand Canal, where
it was rumoured that Foscarini " practised," did arrange

304 THE DOGES OF VENICE

political rendezvous there, and it is certain that he was suspected
by the " Excellencies " of the Collegia, of having manipulated
the affair of the Countess in a way to prevent discovery
of his own proceedings. He was, however, a faithful servant
to his mistress, and it is a certain aspersion on that lady's
innocence that she did shortly leave Venice to reside for the
rest of her stay in Italy, at Turin. All things considered, she
got very well out of the affair ; profiting, perhaps, by King
James's inclination for a Spanish alliance and the anxiety of
Venice to prevent it. Her sons were subsequently pre-
sented to the Doge, on an occasion when Ambassador Wotton
handed to His Serenity an autograph letter in Latin express-
ing the thanks of Jacobus dei gratia, etc. etc., to Domino Antonio
Priuli Venetiarum Duci, amico nostra charissimo, for liberating
from aU suspicion " consanguinece nostrm charissimce Arundelice
et Surrics comitissce." Antonio Priuli was equal to this occasion,
as to so many others of greater and of less importance. He
declared that in the matter of the Countess they had only
done what His Majesty of England would also have done
in like case, and added that the sons of the Earl of Arundel,
whom he embraced, had so well acquired the manners and
tongue of the country, that he considered them very Venetians.

This was in July 1622. In January of the following year
was pubUshed the famous declaration of the Council of the
Ten, called by Romanin an " act sublime," whereby all
accusations against Antonio Foscarini cavaliere were with-
drawn and the honour and reputation of his family indemnified.
The authors of the falsities and impostures machinating
against the distinguished and noble victim, had volimtarily
confessed the fraudiolence of their depositions and their
worthiness of condign punishment. It was fitting, therefore,
that by a public decree the facts should be made manifest and
" this family truly worthy of commiseration restored to its
pristine grade of honour and reputation."

Without regarding this act as particularly " sublime,"
it may yet be permitted to see in its printing, publishing and
dispatch to all the courts of Europe, evidence of an intention
of justice in that body of Ten which, of all tribunals of modern
history, has the reputation of greatest injustice. The whole

STATE LIBERTIES AND DIPLOMACY 305

tale of Foscarini's condemnation, execution and subsequent
rehabilitation is fraught with mystery. Though, undoubtedly
falsely accused, it is not certain that no blame attached to
him in any poUtical matters, while it is certain that in
spite of the "act sublime" of confession and restitution, the
Council of the Ten, with its junta of Inquisitors, Advocates
and Doge, was much to be blamed for too keen anxiety to
believe the worst of persons accused, and too great readiness
to inflict " exemplary punishment " on all who came under its
power.

20

CHAPTER XVII
RESISTANCE TO REFORM AND THE CANDIOT WAR

A.D. 1624 TO 1659

THE " Ten " had yet to suffer for their mistakes in the
Foscarini affair. The catastrophe of their fallibility
unnerved them for a time, and made them hesitate
to judge according to the laws, in cases in which severity was
really demanded. In this situation it was comparatively
easy for an insinuating Doge to defy his Promissione and to
work for his own and his family's advantage.

Giovanni Cornaro, the 96th Doge, was not a man who ran
full tut at the restraints on his authority. He did not act high-
handedly, and held no genuine views concerning the extent
of his authority and the prerogatives of his rank. The story
of his contest with Renier Zeno, a councillor of iconoclastic
spirit who won the name of and proved himself to be a Re-
former, is a revelation of the true spirit of Cornaro.

Zeno had already distinguished himself when Ambassador
in Rome, by faithfully reporting all intelligence of interest
to his government, particularly that which concerned the
granting of a papal dispensation for the marriage of the Prince
of Wales, then in Madrid, with the Infanta. He had also
maintained with zeal the rights of his country against papal
encroachments, and had so offended a Cardinal who was
nephew to the Pope, by appropriating an Abbey in Brescia,
that the Court of Rome sent to Venice a request for
his recall. At this a storm arose. The Senate would not
establish a precedent for the recall of Ambassadors at the
instance of Princes to whom they were accredited, and it was

the opinion of the majority that Zeno had acted with integrity

306

RESISTANCE TO REFORM 307

and devotion. The expedient of replacing the ordinary
Ambassador by an Ambassador-Extraordinary for the settle-
ment of some special questions concerning the river Po, having
been hit upon, Zeno made a triumphal return to Venice.
This must have been gratifying to one who " loved the applause
of the Piazza and who desired the glory of originating con-
spicuous reforms." He was elected a Privy Councillor of the
Doge within a few days of his arrival in the capital, and in
that office his combative spirit was soon in exercise. It had
been decided to exact penalties from the many citizens who
had failed to pay the tax of the tenth within the limit of time
fixed. A crowd of neglectful gentlemen who did not wish a
default-mark to be made against their names in the govern-
ment books, besieged the door of the pay-office, but the
Savii of the Cabinet held that out-of-time contributions
should not be received. This punctilio greatly annoyed Zeno.
He said it was against the public interest to refuse money
actually tendered when there was pressing need of it. He
argued also that it was not credible that anyone would have
incurred the penalty by wilful delay in payment, and that, if
there were a law which prevented the government's accept-
ance of the money, he, as a Councillor, suspended it for three
days. At this a Savio made the caustic comment, " The sum
of it is, this man wishes to be a tyrant over us, when what is
needed is that he should rest content with being a private
citizen." " What is needed," retorted Zeno, " is that the
Councillors who constitute the most serene Signory should be
able to advise freely what they feel to be for the public service,
without being impeded by the Savii, who are nothing unless
servants of the Council." As for himself, he added, he would
not come again to the Council, unless some such provision as
he suggested were made.

True to his word, Zeno absented himself from all meetings
for some days, until another Savio — the cavaliere procurafore
Antonio Nani — thinking that the reformer's wrath would
have calmed down, summoned him in the name of Doge
Giovanni Cornaro. Zeno obeyed the summons, but finding
that his Prince took no notice of him, and that there was no
business on hand that required his presence, he rose and

3o8 THE DOGES OF VENICE

announced that he waited to hear what commands His Serenity
had for him, since he had invited his attendance. The Doge
repUed that he had not summoned him, and the Savio Nani
explained that Zeno had been called to make up the necessary
number of Councillors for an election that was to follow. The
election turned out to be one for quite a minor official, and
Zeno blazed out that his patience was being abused, and that
they were rascally knaves who had complained that he was
not content to be a private citizen. With this, he departed,
and, as the Doge was present, his conduct was adjudged an
offence against the Supreme Head of the State. The matter
being referred to the Council of the Ten, Zeno was ordered
to appear within eight days at the prisons of the Capi of
that body, to answer for his injurious words. To this order
he paid no attention, and there was passed on him a
sentence of banishment from the city, the Dogado, and all the
provinces of the terra firma, with the condition that if he
gave himself up within a month he should be sent for one
year to Palma.

Although condemned by the Ten, Zeno was exonerated
in the public mind. It was said that his enemies had first
provoked and then illegally sentenced htm. He remained
for a month in his own house, and made an attempt to gain
a hearing at a time when his chief adversary in the Council
was being himself proceeded against. At the end of the
month, however, he was removed from Venice and taken to
Palma.

Now just at this time Pope Urban viii appointed to be
Cardinal, Federico Cornaro, a son of the reigning Doge. This
proceeding was, of course, quite contrary to the laws of
Venice, which prohibited the Doge, his sons, and grandsons,
from accepting any ecclesiastical benefices. The ingenious
Cornaro thought that the difficulty could be got over if
he, from the throne, announced the appointment to the
complete Cabinet, and asked that body to decide whether
the Cardinalate were included in the inhibition. This course
he adopted, and having made his request, proclaimed him-
self in any case ready to conform to the public will and to
order his son to refuse the dignity of Cardinal, even as he

RESISTANCE TO REFORM 309

himself would despoil himself of the ducal corno if that were
required of him. He did not, however, neglect to point out
that the Cardinalate need not be regarded as among pro-
hibited benefices and pensions, since it was nothing more
than a title and did not carry a revenue.

Only one member of the Cabinet — Nicolo Contarini
— a future Doge — dared to demur to the wishes of Conaro,
but the matter was relegated to the Senate. This body sent
a reply stating that in the opinion of the Senate the dignity
of Cardinal was comprised in the prohibitions, but that in
view of the great merit of their present Doge and his family,
and of the conditions of the times which did not allow them
to offend the Pontiff by doing otherwise than approve of the
election, and seeing the risk they might run in not having a
Venetian Cardinal again for a long time, particularly one so
affectionately disposed towards the Republic as Federico
Cornaro, it was proposed to approve the appointment.

Thus encouraged, Doge Cornaro permitted other irregu-
larities of which his relations and himself were guilty, to
continue, and indeed he added to the abuses. His brother —
Marcantonio Cornaro — being Dean of St. Mark, against a strict
provision of the laws — obtained permission to visit Rome with
a grant of the sum of money it was customary to aUow a
Venetian Cardinal going to the papal court in the public service.
Other despites were the making of his brother-in-law, Daniele
Dolfino, a Councillor for the division of St. Mark; the nominating
of his youngest son, Francesco, to the Junta of the Senate ;
and the admitting to that body also of another son, Alvise,
who had been Ambassador in Spain.

All these arrangements were carried out quietly enough,
so long as Zeno remained in Palma. But in July 162; he was
recalled through the offices of an insistent friend, ai d found
himseK on his arrival in Venice already nominated to the
CouncU of the Ten. He had no sooner entered that body than
he drew attention to the various offices held by sons and
other relatives of the Doge that were specially forbidden to
them in many ducal Promissioni. Appealing to the Avogadon,
he called upon them to annul the prohibited elections. These
officers repUed that they had already thought of doing so.

310 THE DOGES OF VENICE

But the Doge hearing of this proceeding, took the initiative
and himself asked to have the elections annulled, adducing in
excuse for having previously consented to them, the latitude
of the laws, and his ignorance of their exact sense. Presiding
later in the Cabinet and being requested to speak. Doge Comaro
made one of his querulous yet wily orations which reveal him
as a man of little dignity of soul. He began with complaints
of the ill-fortune wliich had brought upon him such labours and
persecutions, although he worked for nothing but the public
good. He would be overwhelmed with grief, he said, even if he
had procured the crown through uproar and influence, but as it
had been thrust upon him contrary to his desires, whilst he
was enjoying a quiet life and attending only to the salvation
of his soul, he was miserable indeed in suffering so much
mortification. He described how the Avogadori had acted
at the instance of Zeno, in registering a deed annulling the
elections of his relatives to various posts, and how he himself
had always consulted with his Council before taking any
step, so what blame was there to him ? He had never pre-
ferred his own interests to those of the public service, nor had
he a different spirit from that of his nobles and all the members
of his house, not one of whom had ever given a bad account
of himself to the Republic. Although there had always been so
many bishops and cardinals in his family, there had never
been any complaint of their having been bought over by Rome.
On the contrary, they had always remained good Venetians
and lovers of their country. The same he would afhrm of
himself and of his sons, in whom he knew of no delinquencies.
If he had detected any in them, he would have turned them
out of his house and no longer counted them his sons. He
prayed each one present to tell him if there were any fault
in this. He himself knew of no defect of will, although
inany of strength. If being old and weak he could not
fully sustain his of&ce, he would willingly, at a sign from
them, relinquish it.

These words moved the compassion of the Cabinet, and for
a time a profound silence reigned. Then Nicolo Contarini
said that, being the oldest Councillor, and since all remained
dumb, he ventured to speak and to express astonishment

RESISTANCE TO REFORM 311

that the Avogadori had taken upon themselves, without the
intervention of a Councillor, to abrogate a resolution already
sanctioned by the Signory. As to His Serenity personally,
it might well be af&rmed that he fulfilled to the utmost the
duties of the first citizen.

Other speakers followed Nicolo Contarini, and it was to be
seen that the constitutionalists of Venice were already pricking
ears at absolutism in Zeno. As the discussion confined, the
Avogadori entered the Council Chamber and offered informa-
tion about the laws. But it was growing late, so the Doge
adjourned the sitting.

After luncheon, but before the hour for the assembly of the
Senate, Zeno sent a message to the Doge, saying that as a
Chief of the Council of the Ten he wished to speak with him.
The Doge returned the reply that he could not receive him
alone in his private apartments ; Zeno must say what he had to
say in the Chamber of Audience in the presence of the most
serene Signory. Comaro then repaired to the Audience
Chamber and took up a position between the Privy Councillors
and the Heads of the Forty. To him entered Zeno with
secretaries of the Council of the Ten, and announced that he
had wished to speak in private with His Serenity, but that
the Prince had chosen better in inviting him to express his
thoughts before his Privy Council. Being invited to sit and
cover himself, he did so, saying that he put on his hat as a Head
of the Council of the Ten, but as Renier Zeno he remained
in the reverence he owed to the Doge. He then explained
that one of the chief trusts of the Heads of the Council of the
Ten, was that of attending to the observance of the ducal
Promissione, with the obligation of admonishing the most
Serene Prince when he committed transgressions. He —
Zeno — having discovered certain transgressions of the present
Doge, had come to do his duty. Taking out a document, he
began to read aloud. The Doge interrupted and desired him
to speak, but Zeno insisted on reading, in order that his words
might not, as had happened to him before, be misrepresented.

At this, an altercation ensued which was ended by the Doge
saying that there was no longer need of an admonition, since
the wrong-doings had been undone, and in any case the laws

3t2 THE DOGES OF VENICE

required that such admonitions should only be nnade by all the
Heads of the Ten, and not by one alone. For this cause he
refused to hear Zeno's admonition.

The Reformer implored the Doge di grazia to submit him-
self to the provisions of the laws, and not to allow a Capo to
depart without a hearing. The Doge consulted with his
Privy Councillors as to whether he were obliged to hear one
Head alone, the while Zeno protested hotly that the Councillors
had no right to interfere in a matter concerning the ducal
Promissione.

"Patience! Signor Cavaliere," cried the Doge at last;
" we have not deserved this torture of you — we who are your
relative and who have favoured your interests on all occasions."

The rebuke moved Zeno to throw himself on his knees.

" In this posture I beseech your Serenity, for the love of
God ! " cried he.

But the Doge had already risen from his seat. He now
proceeded towards the Senate Chamber. The doors were
thrown open and the ushers called, but at the last moment,
and when actually in the doorway, His Serenity turned and
remarked that although he knew he was not obliged to do so, he
would hear Zeno for the sake of public quiet.

So all present resumed their seats, and the Secretary to the
Ten read aloud Renier Zeno's admonition of his Doge. The
chief complaints of the document were that Francesco and
Alvise Cornaro had been elected to the Senate against the ex-
press Promissioni of many Doges, and that His Serenity had in
both cases appUed only to the Signory to confirm the elections,
although it had been particularly provided that such confirma-
tions should be obtained of the majority of the Privy Coun-
cillors acting with the Great Council. It was unnecessary to
remind His Serenity of the disorders ensuing upon the aforesaid
confirmations, on account of their being obtained from a body
not permitted by the laws to grant them. For these causes,
Zeno had charged the Advocates of the Commune to censure
the irregularities and to provide for the inviolable execution of
the laws.

The admonition so clearly stated the case, that Doge
Cornaro could only bow to its reasoning and agree to the im-

RESISTANCE TO REFORM 313

mediate substitution of other senators for his sons. Elated by
his success, Zeno called upon Heaven to bless the Doge who, in
submitting himself to the laws, had acted in a most princely
fashion. For himself he claimed he had proved his devotion
to His Serenity and his most serene family, by his conduct as
Ambassador in Rome, where, although in order to maintain the
dignity of an Ambassador of a crowned Sovereign, he had never
gone to visit any other prelate, he had nevertheless called on
the illustrious Monsignor Federico Comaro on an occasion when
he was confined to the house by illness. To this the Doge
replied politely that he was assured of Zeno's good intentions.

The following day the elections of his sons' successors in the
Senate took place in the presence of the Doge. But fresh
trouble arose when Zeno requested that his admonition might
be registered in the ducal Chancery. To give such publicity
and permanency to the censures was inevitably regarded by
Comaro as a fresh insxilt, and in the Cabinet much com-
miseration was expressed that the Doge should be subjected
in his old age to such hmniliation. It was feared that
thus deprived of esteem and respect, Cornaro could never
again appear in public, preside at solemn functions, treat with
foreign Powers, or sustain with honour the first dignity of
the Republic, which would itself share in the contumely in-
flicted on its head. Upon a resolution being proposed that the
matter should be referred to the Council of the Ten, Zeno
mounted the rostrum and argued that the Act must be regis-
tered, not, as he had already said, to condemn the reigning
Prince and his sons, who were angels, but to obviate future
abuses, of which the country was in danger because of the
machinations of Rome, which were always being exerted to
tempt citizens in authority by gifts of benefices and dignities.
These considerations had moved their forefathers to draw up
wise laws in regard to ecclesiastics ; while, because of their
facilities for communication with foreign princes, the sons of
Doges had been excluded from rank and vote in the Senate.
Finally, all ducal relatives in general were debarred from mer-
cantile undertakings on account of their special opportunities
of excessive gain, and of the advantages they might derive from
the customs.

314 THE DOGES OF VENICE

All the points of this speech of Zeno hit home. In the
palace of the Cornari at San Polo had long been seen draperies
of a Florentine serge, forbidden to be imported, and the sons of
the Doges had all remained in Rome for longer periods than
were permitted to those of their rank, while one son at least —
Giorgio — ^was known to be interested in commerce; particu-
larly in the transport of cattle from Zara to Venice.

An outburst of expostulation followed Zeno's harangue, and
the Councillor — Donato — who succeeded him in the rostrum,
reproved him for having by himself admonished His Serenity,
a thing contrary to the usages of the Republic Zeno was
about to reply when Pesaro, another " Head " of the Ten,
leapt to his feet and ordered Zeno to come down, as he and
their third colleague — Gradenigo — ^had suspended all the
things Zeno had done. Zeno refused to leave the rostrum,
saying that Pesaro had no power to do as he had said.

" No ? " cried out Pesaro, " then I appeal to the Council of
the Ten."

Thereupon great confusion in the Senate ; every man
springing to his feet, both those who wanted the appeal and
those who did not ! The result was an Assembly of the Ten
in which the proposal of Pesaro and Gradenigo that Zeno's
admonition should be annulled, was approved.

But Zeno was not to be quieted, and at the next meeting of
the Great Council he brought the charge against Pesaro and
Gradenigo that they were liable to the penalty of two thousand
ducats for breaking the laws regarding the ducal Promissione.
He further declared the judging of dubious cases to be the
function of the Great Council and not of other tribunals. He
also asked for a decision from the Great Council as to whether
one Head of the Ten alone could not examine and admonish
a Doge, or whether it was necessary for all three or two of
them to be in accord. After a long argument between Zeno
and Pesaro, the voting went in favour of the Reformer, who
immediately demanded a registration in the Chancery of the
penalties incurred by his two colleagues. But great objections
to this course were raised in the Council of the Ten, and Zeno
withdrew his proposition upon the election of three new heads.

By his bold reassertion of the ancient principles of the

RESISTANCE TO REFORM 315

xiltimate power vesting in the Great Council, and of the Ten
and all other bodies of the legislati4re deriving their authority
from the larger assembly, Zeno won the popular reputation of
being a severe reformer of abuses, and raised himself to the
head of a party which may be designated the " Opposition."
His triumphs cost him dear. At five o'clock on the evening of
30th December 1627, as he stood beneath the portico of the
Carta, waiting for the moment when his gondola was due, he was
assaulted by five imrecognizable individuals who stabbed him
in various parts of the body, and threw him for dead under a
bench. The assailants then fled in the direction of the family
mansion of the Comari. Reviving a little, Zeno mustered the
force to proceed to the riva, threw himself into a gondola
moored there, and told the boatman to take him to the house
of a relative near by. Lively and general was the indignation
that broke forth when the horrid fact became known through-
out the city. The populace gathered madly on the Piazza to
discuss the particulars of the crime. All were agreed that the
culprit must be of the family of the Doge. It was Giorgio
Comaro, the son whose business of importing cattle had no
doubt been injured by Zeno's campaign against ducal indis-
cretions, whom the people suspected. The speedy flight of the
said Giorgio confirmed the general idea. His five accomplices
acknowledged their guilt, and were cited to appear before the
Council of Ten.

It was not alone that son of Renier Zeno who presented
himself before the Ten on the feast-day of the New Year,
bearing the blood-stained garments of his wounded father and
clamouring for vendetta, who declared that the punishment of
the assailants ought to be " exemplary." It was widely said
that in such a case Venice should not allow more noise than
action. Streams of inquirers after the condition of Zeno
flowed constantly towards the house where he lay. It was
the general desire that the Council of the Ten should act
promptly. This, it may be said, they did ; for on 7th January
1628, the outlawry of Giorgio Comaro was pronounced
with the usual forms. But owing to sufficient time being
allowed the outlaw to make his provisions, the confiscation of
his property was without effect, and Giorgio established himself

3i6 THE DOGES OF VENICE

comfortably enough at Ferrara. The Comari continued to
hold their heads high, and the note of infamy posted in the
courtyard of the palace went for nothing. The partiality
of the Ten for the house of Comaro was evident.

No wonder therefore that when the fiery Zeno recovered
of his wounds and plunged once more into the fray of poUtics,
his attacks on the venality and self-interest of the Council of the
Ten were more passionate, and his determination to uphold
the Great Council as the centre of authority, firmer than ever.
It seemed to be beyond the power of Doge Giovanni Comaro
to see how scandalously justice had been circumvented by
the action of the Ten regarding his delinquent son. Neither
could he perceive that he had come upon an hour when the
demand for a broad basis of authority was growing, and when
the exploiters of governmental power could no longer throw the
dust of a mere semblance of authority in the eyes of patriots.

A few months after Zeno's restoration to activity he was
again elected one of the three heads of the Ten. Being
forbidden by a former resolution of that body, which involved
a menace of aU the rigours of the law, to speak again of matters
already discussed, Zeno renewed his war on ducal privileges
by demanding to read a paper before the Great Council which
touched on the Promissione in regard to the exclusion of
the Doge and his relatives from all debates concerning the
ducal family. The Ten would not agree to his demand, against
which the Doge and all his family also contended. Zeno, who
was now aglow with the idea that his life had been given to
him again only to be consecrated anew to his country's good,
persisted in his demand. So persistent was he, that conserva-
tive Councillors were enraged, and one quoted the saying of an
earlier time — Such is this Republic that it cannot brook a Ccesar.
He added that if a Caesar should appear, a thousand Cassiuses
and Brutuses would immediately rise against him. Zeno
responded that it was no action of a Caesar to express his views to
the great Council and make that body the judge of them. The
discussion was at its hottest, when the Doge took courage to
say that the Cavaliere Zeno had been stirred against him by
vendetta for an attempt on his life, of which he, the Doge, was
in no way giiilty, and for which those who were guilty had been

RESISTANCE TO REFORM 317

duly punished. For the rest, no one had cause to blame his
house. His ancestors had given kingdoms to the Republic.
This allusion to the Island of Cyprus was not very well received,
but the Doge continued fretfully that he himself had never in
any way transgressed his Promissione. If his sons had been
balloted for in the Senate, all had been done by virtue of the
deliberations of the Serene Signory . In this strain he proceeded,
stringing the old excuses for Ids various offences, and adding that
he had only come into the Council that morning after having
been assured by the Councillors that he might do so, and that
he would willingly depart when he should be told to go.

At the end of the ducal harangue, Zeno called out : " Signori
Avogadori, it is your business to see that the laws are observed."

" How now ? " replied the Doge quickly, " may we not
speak ? "

At this there was great uproar in the Council, and much
shouting and battering of benches on the part of the adherents of
the Doge. A discourse from Zeno was continually interrupted,
and he finished it with the derisive exclamation, " liberta !"

The noise broke out afresh then, and an endeavour by the re-
former to read a paper accusing the Doge and Privy Councillors
of intermeddling with the ducal Promissione, was imsuccessful.
Very soon afterwards the sitting closed. Later in the same day
the question of the arrest of Zeno, together with such of his
supporters as might be likely to stir an insurrection on the
Piazza, was discussed in a Council of the Ten specially assembled
in the Doge's own chamber; Facility was also given to the In-
quisitors to search out any who were critical of the operations of
the CoimcU of the Ten, and to formulate processes against them.

When it became known that action against Zeno was con-
templated, there was great commotion in the city and much
lamentation over the conditions of the times which saw the
curtailment of the dignity of the Great Council and the oppres-
sion of public liberty. In the end, Zeno received a sentence of
banishment for ten years.

This sentence was very quickly reversed by a decree of the
Great Council, which ordered also the destruction of all records
concerning it. Zeno returned to Venice amid the applause
of the populace, and from that time forward substituted a war

3i8 THE DOGES OF VENlClK^

on the abused privileges of the Ten, for his war on the pre-
sumptions of the Doge and his relations.

When the time came for Doge Cornaro to go hence, there was
elected in his room the Nicolo Contarini who had at first
opposed his predecessor on principle, and in the end supported
him from compassion. He was a pious man, as a Doge had
need to be in whose time came a disastrous war with Mantua
and a terrible pestilence, largely, of course, the result of the war
with its numerous battlefields and their long unburied corpses.
By November 1631 the number of those dead of plague in the
Venetian Dogado alone was 46,490. And as in 1575, it had
been decided during an epidemic to raise the Church of the
Redentore, so in 1630, it was determined to erect a great Temple
to be dedicated to the Blessed Virgin of the Salvation.

The first stone of the new church was to have been laid
on the day of the Annunciation, which was also the day of
the foundation of Venice. But the Doge being indisposed,
the ceremony was postponed to April ist. The work of
building was commenced some five months later — September
6th, 1613 — ^but not until the 9th of November 1687 was the
new Temple consecrated. On the 28th of November of the
year 1631, it was announced in the name of the new Doge,
Francesco Erizzo, and by order of the Officers of Health,
that the city was at last free from contagion. The news was
received with fites and public demonstrations of all kinds;
by salvos of artillery and showers of fireworks. A proces-
sion of the Scuole and of magistrates of all orders gorgeously
robed, passed beneath triumphal arches that spanned the way
from the door of the Church of St. Mark by the calle of
Giustinian and S. Moise, to a bridge of boats, over which it
proceeded to the farther bank of the Grand Canal, whereon
was to rise the magnificent creation of Baldassare Longhena,
which is the most imposing, although neither the most beautiful
nor the most venerable, of all the monuments of Venetian
thought, fancy and aspiration.

The miseries of the plague had hardly been overcome, when
the long smouldering jealousy of Venice nursed by the Ottoman
power in Europe, burst into flame, and a war that lasted for
twenty-five years was begun by a Turkish invasion of Crete.

RESISTANCE TO REFORM 319

The casus belli had been built up of grievances caused by
the depredations of the numerous piratical fleets on the
Mediterranean and Adriatic seas. The corsairs of Barbary,
Florenqe and Algiers had become particularly daring, but the
most inveterate pirates of them all were the Knights of Malta.

In 1644, a fleet of Turkish vessels, with pilgrims to Mecca
and rich cargoes on board, was attacked and overpowered
by a Maltese buccaneering squadron, which sailed with its
prizes to Kalismene, an insufficiently protected port in the
south of Crete. There water and provisions were obtained,
and rescued Greeks and inconvenient horses seized from the
Turks, landed.

This affront was just the provocation the Sultan Ibrahim
had been waiting for. He had long desired to recover Crete,
as Cyprus had been recovered, but he went through the form
of parlejdng with such representatives of the greater Christian
powers as were then in Constantinople. While he talked,
however, he fitted out a fleet of four hundred sail for the
transport — professedly to Malta — of fifty thousand fighting-
men. This fleet issued from the Dardanelles on 30th April
1645. The first ports made were Tino and Navarino, where
additional ships and men were gathered. From Navarino the
Turks steered boldly for Crete.

Great was the consternation in Venice and the Archipelago
when the destination of Ibrahim's armada became known.
The best possible provision was at once made by the Proveditor-
General of the army in Crete, but Canea, one of the four chief
towns of the island, could not be put into a proper state of
defence at short notice, and in the following August its de-
fenders were overpowered by the Turks. Meanwhile, some
allies had sent out small fleets — five galleys each from the
Pope, Tuscany and Naples, and six from Malta — but these all
put themselves in safety in harbours near Zante and other
islands off the west coast of Greece, and, even when joiped
by a more formidable flotilla from Venice, would not go to the
aid of the Cretan garrisons. To occupy the island, now that
Canea had been taken, seemed to the cautious a forlorn hope.
It was not only that the Ottoman hordes had obtained an
advantage, and that even the winds and tides seemed to be

320 THE DOGES OF VENICE

fighting for them, but the season was advanced and provisions
were running short. The auxiliaries did in the end make
junction with the Venetian forces, but sailed away after stand-
ing by for thirty-seven days of weather too stormy for fighting.

Now the Candiot war, together with the Morean to follow
it, was to bring once more into full activity the ancient heroism
of the Venetian character. The Signory and the subjects of
Venice alike were to enter with enthusiasm into an all but
single-handed contest with the greatest nation — ^reckoning by
the size of its armies and navies and the inexhaustibility of
its funds — of that day.

In Venice, the heart and head of the Empire, the sword was
unsheathed ; a little late, but very determinately. Troops were
sent into Dalmatia and Corfu ; galleys dispatched to scour
the seas ; Lido and Malamocco ref ortified ; a strong man
sent to govern Friuli ; and with much preparation and every
equipment of war a great fleet fitted out for the defence of
Crete. Everything was completely planned, except the
appointment of a Captain-General, and when a vote for this
post was taken in the Senate, the name of the Doge appeared
on the majority of the ballot discs. Francesco Erizzo was an
old man of eighty, but (like how many Doges of yore ?) he was
ready, despite the frailties of his age, to sacrifice for his country
the little of life that was left to him, and the public admiration
of his devoted act triumphed over all objections of fidgety
senators who had much to say of the inconvenience and
expense of a Doge accompanying an army abroad. Two
Councillors were nominated as special supporters of Erizzo
on the expedition, and all preparations were advanced when
the hero was snatched away by death, leaving the record of his
patriotism as an inspiration for those who came after him.

It was not allowed to his successor — Francesco Molino —
to follow in the steps Erizzo would have taken. Molino's Pro-
missione contained clauses forbidding Doges in the future to
leave the city without licence, and compelling them to visit
the magistrates in their courts and hear causes on the first day
of each month, and to go every three months, but without
appointment, to inspect the Arsenal. To save expense, both
for the Arts-Guilds and the people in general, the coronation

RESISTANCE TO REFORM 321

of the Dogaressa was abolished, and it was prohibited to
nephews of Doges to be sent as ambassadors to foreign countries.

One of the first acts of poUcy under Francesco Molino, was
the sending of messengers to the chief European courts to ask
for help; either direct aid, by dispatch of troops to Crete,
or indirect, by creating diversions in other lands where Turkey
was encroaching. But from all except France, refusals were
the only responses. Under the pretence of mediating in favour
of Venice, Cardinal Msizarin sent an emissary to Constantinople,
whose business really was to assure the Sultan that the arma-
ments of France were directed only against Italy. On his
way back to Paris, this French envoy stopped in Venice and
told the Senate that a terrible war threatened, and the Venetians
had better try to avoid it by prompt negotiation.

But the blood of the lagoon dwellers was up, and their
only care was to be ready in the spring to repel all onslaughts
of the Turks upon their colonies. Crete, of course, and par-
ticularly the port of Candia, was the chief place to be defended,
but the area of the WEir stretched from that island in the south,
to Constantinople on the north-east, and Istria on the north-west.

In the beguming the movements of the Venetian com-
manders resulted mainly in a series of fiascos. Many captains
and crews of single vessels performed prodigies of valour, and
Candia was always stoutly defended, but the forces were
badly directed, and two Captains-General were appointed in
succession before the post was given to Leonardo Mocenigo,
who took command in Crete in 1648. At that time the Turks
were fiercely besieging the fortified town of Candia, and the
plague which had appeared on the island in the previous
year was still ravaging the small army composed of 6000
soldiers, some inhabitants, a few locally raised condotti, and
a small troop of Frenchmen not under the direct command
of Mocenigo. So closely was the town invested, so near to
it were the works, that a Turkish victory seemed certain. But
Leonardo Mocenigo scorned to show fear of the overwhelm-
ing numbers of the enemy, or of the thundering day and
night of the Turkish cannon. Even the great towers and
earth-banks which rose without the breaches of the walls of
Candia, and from which the assailants fired down on a city
21

322 THE DOGES OF VENICE

ill-supplied with appliances of defence to match the new in-
ventions of attack wielded by the enemy, gave him no alarm.
Subterranean passages winding in all directions had been
dug by the Turks, and a very formidable mine being suddenly
discovered by a Venetian of&cer, he fled from his post crying,
" Lost, all is lost ! " This shout of despair was the inspiration
of Mocenigo.

" Very well," he shouted back, " let us die with our arms
in our hands."

Then waving encouragement to the panic-stricken, " Let
the brave follow me ! " he cried.

Thus he rallied the soldiers and collected the citizens,
exciting even the women to collect stones and hurl
them at the enemy. The Turks had already mounted a
bastion, from which it was only a jump on to the Piazza, but
Mocenigo drove them back into trenches which were soon
heaped high with swarthy corpses. Forced to retire, the
assailants could not at once return to the attack, and the
arrival of reinforcements from Venice rendered Mocenigo's
victory complete.

The general situation, however, was bad for Venice, and it
was proposed in the Senate that the Doge and twenty-four
honourable nobles to be elected by the Great Council, should
be empowered to treat for peace. Before negotiations could
be opened, a fresh outrage of the Turks made an honourable
peace impossible. The Sultan Ibrahim having been throttled
in a revolt in his own seraglio, the Cavaliere Alvise Contarini
was sent with the usual congratulations to his successor. It
was thought that some help in arriving at a peace might be
obtained from the new Sultan Mahomet, who was only twelve
years old. But when the Grand Vizier found that Contarini
brought no offer to yield Crete, he not only refused him passports
but barbarously strangled his interpreter and put the Venetian
BaUiff (Soranzo) and all his suite in prison, first driving them
through the streets, loaded with chains and exposed to the
insults of the populace.

So the war began again, and Crete was once more the scene
of marvellous feats of Venetian valour. Again the Turks,
despairing to take the town by assault, had recourse to mines

RESISTANCE TO REFORM 323

and other engineering devices. Again reinforcements were
sent both from Venice and from Constantinople. And in
and out the isles and promontories of the Archipelago, and up
and down the byways of the Gulf, penetrating even to the
narrows of the Dardanelles, the Proveditor Jacopo Riva and„
other sea-dogs of old Venice sailed to the harassment of Turkish
war-ships wherever they were to be f oimd. In the winter of 1650
the main fleet of the Turks, taking advantage of Riva's return
to Venice for refit and repairs, sheltered within the Dardanelles,
whence a formidable flotilla sailed forth in June 1651, with
commission to make for the Gulf of Venice. This fleet carried
devastation and terror wherever it went. But upon the evening
of 7th July, the ships of Venice met those of Ttirkey in the way,
and a desperate engagement took place close to the Island
of Paros in the heart of the Archipelago. The fight went on
for days, the greatest bravery being displayed by the out-
numbered Italians. But the chief distinction of the battle lies in
the fact that the leading coimnanders on the Venetian side
were the three successive Captains-General, Leonardo Mocenigo,
Lazzaro Mocenigo and Francesco Morosini, who one and
all rank as heroes, and of whom the last became the Doge of
fame on whom Venice conferred the title of Peloponnesiaco.
In this early encounter Morosini came opportunely to the
rescue of a galley on which the Captain was resisting desper-
ately an attack by several Turkish ships. The honours of the
whole engagement lay with the Venetians, and when news
of the " most luminous victory " reached the capital, the
Great Council suspended its session, and followed the Doge
Francesco Molino to San Marco, where a great service of
national thanksgiving was held. And while Venice rejoiced,
mutiny and riot in Constantinople drove the Grand Vizier
to ask for the intervention of France in arranging a peace.
But no terms could be agreed. The war had still to go on.

Both Leonardo and Lazzaro Mocenigo had died heroically in
active exercise of their commands, and four Doges, Carlo Con-
TARiNi, Francesco Cornaro, Bertuccio Valier and Giovanni
Pesaro had followed Francesco Molino on the ducal throne,
before the great Francesco Morosini was appointed Captain-
General in 1666.

CHAPTER XVIII
THE GLORY OF THE SETTING SUN

A.D. 1667 TO 1694

WHEN to Francesco Morosini was at last given the
supreme command of the Venetian navy, his country
was exhausted by its Uberal doles of men and money.
A time when peace would have to be made was fast approaching.
Indeed it may be said that Venice had emptied herself into
Crete. Not only had she lavishly expended there her gold and
her nobility, but she had sacrificed to it her industries. It was
a duty of the Arti to furnish rowers for vessels of war from
their craftsmen, and so great had been the demand that the
supply was drained to the dregs.

But matters were different in Crete. The regular troops
there numbered sixty thousand besides such of the inhabi-
tants as were able to bear arms. There were also many expert
of&cers and highly-trained engineers on the Island, and the
number of bronze cannons, mostly of large calibre, was over
four hundred. Food and ammunition were likewise abundant,
and monthly consignments from Venice replenished the store.
Yet all these provisions were insufficient, when matched against
the innumerable host investing Candia, with its inexhaustible
stream of supplies, both of men and of victuals, and its mar-
vellous array of fighting-engines. Not only the cannon with
their balls of extraordinary weight, but the mortars and other
stone-throwing machines were all of the latest pattern money
could buy, and in the greatest number that could possibly be
employed. Besides, the Turks had so extended the depths and
ramifications of their mines, that the Venetians were as much

in danger of being blown sky-high within their fortresses, and

324

THE GLORY OF THE SETTING SUN 325

even while taking refuge in their numerous excavations, as they
were of being felled to the ground by the showers of stones,
bombs and other missiles that so frequently darkened the air.
It is true that the roofs of the mines often fell in upon the Turks
working in them or filing along for a daring attack on the town,
but these discomfitures did not balance the dangers of them to
the garrison and inhabitants of Candia. By degrees, nearly the
whole population of Crete had taken refuge in the best-fortified
port of the island, the defence of which had been so gallantly
maintained that between May and November of the year 1667
alone, thirty-two assaults were repulsed, and seventeen sorties
made, while six hundred and eighty explosions took place on
one side or the other of the walls. There perished also either
from wounds or sickness, three thousand two hundred Venetians
(of whomfour hundredwere officers) and twenty thousand Turks.

Indeed the great losses on the side of the invaders had
caused the swarming Moslems to leave the attack for a time,
and to attempt to win by persuasions and menaces what they
had failed to gain by force of arms. But in this hour of trial
every inhabitant of Candia proved himself a hero. The women
fought with the men, and helped to repair the fortifications.

Then came the new Captain-General to the Island. It was
winter, and his first care was to repair still further the defences,
to construct new ones, and, in all ways, to prepare the garrison
for a strenuous and terrible season. His first decided exploit
was a successful one. Divining a movement of the enemy to
cut off the delivery of provisions from Venice, Morosini, in the
night of 7th March 1668, bore down suddenly with twenty
galleys on the Turkish squadron that had been sent out to attack
a small fleet with which Lorenzo Cornaro was scouring the neigh-
bouring waters. At first the Turks thought they had Cornaro's
vessels at their mercy, but the desperate combat that ensued
revealed to them their mistake. The battle was made more
terrible by the darkness. Both sides fought boldly, but the
sensation of the contest was created by Morosini. Durac, a
famous corsair in the Turkish employ, was making to board a
galley of Nicolo Polani, when the Captain-General, his bark
flaming with torches, swooped down upon the contending
vessels, and opened a way for his fleet to divide that of the

326 THE DOGES OF VENICE

enemy. The startling splendour of Morosini's fireworks so terri-
fied the Turks that their boats were put about in confusion, and
the Venetians had the victory with five galleys of the enemy, four
hundred prisoners and one thousand Christian slaves who had
been rowers on the Mohammedan vessels. These slaves were
immediately set free. Great praise was given to Morosini for
his bold and original movement, and the title of Cavaliere was
conferred on him by the Senate.

But the success of Venice only whetted the anger of the
Turks and drove the Vizier in command of the Cretan army
to a more ruthless expenditure of his soldiers' lives. The
fighting on the walls of Candia became fiercer every day.
Hand-to-hand combats were frequent. Forts were taken and
retaken. Mines were sprung and stores of powder exploded
as a demonstration of force. The inhabitants of Candia lived in
their pits of refuge, and the entire garrison of the city was
reduced to five thousand men.

The name of Candia was now famous throughout Europe.
Upon that narrow spot of bravely defended earth had
descended a romantic reputation, and it had become the
fashion with young gallants of all nations to repair to the
assistance of General Morosini. Some of these, although in
command of valuable companies, proved hinderers rather
than helpers of Morosini's plans. It was no part of the excite-
ment they had promised themselves, to remain huddled together
within the walls of Candia. They wanted to ride out and give
battle ; to perform feats of daring and horsemanship that
would astonish the world, beginning of course with the Turks.

Various bodies of these allies caiiie at two separate times,
and the adventurers of French blood with some striplings
among other leaders, were difficult to keep in hand. Because of
their voluntary aid and the numbers of their followers, Morosini
was forced to let them have their way at times. Their sorties,
however, ended always either in complete failure or hope-
less confusion. Then, when vanity had been satisfied, these
dashing princelings sailed away, leaving Morosini — the true
hero — still at his post of most uncomfortable and laborious
defence. Once during these times of friendly assistance,
Morosini watched the progress of a skirmish he had advised

THE GLORY OF THE SETTING SUN 327

against, from the fort of San Dimitri. As the day progressed,
the unhappy issue could be only more clearly foreseen. For a
last effort, the General himself led a party out to cover the
retreat, and gave orders for cannon and musket volleys to be
poured on the enemy. But no dash on his part could render an
iU-planned movement successful, and the toll of the dead on the
Venetian side for that day's display alone, was close on five
hundred. In prisoners not more than ten were lost. They
knew how to die fighting, those dare-devils. It was for sur-
render they had no taste. Other fruitless sorties followed on
this one. The mass of the enemy remained impervious to such
gnat-like irritations. So losing heart and hope as quickly as
they had once mounted courage, all allies at last deserted
Mqrosini, turning a deaf ear, in their anxiety to be gone, both
to his remonstrances and to the supplications of the inhabitants
of Candia. The garrison was now reduced to three thousand,
and, although the Turks began to say that they were fighting
not men but supernatural beings, it was seen in Venice, as in
Crete, that capitulation could not be long deferred. Ambassa-
dors were sent to Constantinople to treat for peace under certain
conditions, but the Grand Vizier could not be talked over, and it
looked like a fight to the finish of an awful ignominy for Venice.
Now gallant and brave as Morosini undoubtedly was, and
willing to give his life for his country, he could not call out as the
simpler hero, Leonardo Mocenigo, had done in a simpler crisis,
" Let us die with our arms in our hands." He saw that such
an end for the military defenders of Candia must lead either
to barbarous deaths or to tortures and enslavements worse
than death, for a number of innocents (men, women and
children) who looked to him for protection of life, limb and
honour. He saw too — for he had the prescience of the truly alert
— that negotiations for peace could only be effected on the spot,
and that to avoid a most humiliating rout they must be entered
into at once. The Turks who had actually fought against the
Venetians, had the most respect for them and believed their
position less vultierable than it was thought to be by onlookers
at a distance ; indeed less vulnerable than it actually was.

In the matter of the peace concluded by Morosini in Crete,
without the aid of Council, Senate or Cabinet at Venice, it

328 THE DOGES OF VENICE

cannot be said that he acted high-handedly or in a hasty
manner. His first move was to assemble in conclave all his
officers who were also all the chief men of the besieged city.
To these he exposed the true condition of things, and lamented
the state to which they were reduced. He then begged them
to consider everything thoroughly, and to make such a proposi-
tion as seemed to them best to fit the case.

A dead silence fell on the assembly ; then a silence mingled
with sobs. No one would be the first to express his opinion in
the difficult emergency.

One by one, Morosini had to draw them to state their views.
There were some who proposed to blow up the fortress by
means of furnaces and mines, but they acknowledged the
difficulty of rescuing at the same time the inhabitants — civU
and military — and the armaments. Others proposed bring-
ing all the galley-slaves ashore to construct new defences,
but it was pointed out that the difficulty of protecting these
while they wofked, would be great. Slowly, the debate ebbed
and flowed ; each speaker knowing in his mind that there could
be no longer any resistance. So at last, and tearfully, it was
decided that the city which had been besieged for two-and-
twenty years, and in which the fighting had been aU but
incessant for three years, should be ceded under an honourable
compact with the foe.

Yet the General was loth to surrender, and he made a last
attempt to hold the place. The papal commandant — the last
of the allies to leave — was on the point of embarking with
the troops he had brought with him, when Morosini sent to
him the message that if he would leave behind only 3000
soldiers, he — Morosini — would undertake to stand firm all
the winter. But the pontifical one refused all further aid.

It was now only left to Morosini to show to the Vizier of the
Turkish army a disposition to negotiate, and to devote all
his energy and subtlety to transforming the capitulation into
a treaty of peace. In this a-^tion he certainly over-stepped
tne limits of his general powers. At his own life's risk he
assumed the responsibilities of a plenipotentiary, believing that
he did so for his coimtry's good.

At first the Vizier would not listen to any terms, so sure

THE GLORY OF THE SETTING SUN 329

was he that Candia could hold out no longer. But by the
avoidance of appeal and the preservation of a demeanour of
assurance, Morosini extracted from the victorious Turk certain
conditions rmder which, although Candia had to be yielded,
the remnant of the Venetian population and of the Venetian
army was saved from falling into cruel hands. Another fortress
on the Island still held by the Italians, was first offered to the
Vizier. He scornfully refused it. It was to be only Candia
for the Turks, whether by conquest or by cession. Finally it
was agreed that Morosini with the last Doge of Crete, Zaccaria
Mocenigo, and all the garrison and inhabitants, should sail away
from Candia on a given day, taking with them 328 of the best of
their cannon, all ammunition and the sacred objects of their re-
ligious worship. Besides these concessions, it was to be permitted
to the Venetians to continue to hold three ports on the island —
Carabusa, Suda and Spinalunga — ^with their adjacent lands, and
the Turks were to make no demand for a money indemnity.

On the 26th of September 1669 the evacuation took place,
and it is noticeable that with the exception of a very few
of the serving class, none of the inhabitants of Venetian origin
consented to remain on the island. They knew what Christian
people had to endure under the domination of the Turk, and
the offers of the Republic to assign to emigrant families from
Crete, houses and grounds in Istria and annual payments of
money and com on other islands of the Levant, were thank-
fully accepted by many among the fugitives.

Thus ended a siege which by its duration and its heroic
defence on one hand and its obstinate assault on the other,
as well as by the outpouring of lives and the extensive use of
mines and explosives, is unparalleled in history. That in the
end, all the heroism and devotion, to say nothing of the cost
in men and money, resulted only in a loss to the Republic which
was never compensated for by any subsequent gain, was a
calamity indeed ; yet the management of Francesco Morosini
at the last, even as his bravery and strategy during the three
years that preceded the treaty, made the surrender of Candia
almost as glorious as its defence had been.

The words of Pope Clement ix, who had been eager as no
Pope before him for the Venetian success, and who had aided

330 THE DOGES OF VENICE

Morosini's efforts to the utmost of his power, appraised the
accomplishment of that illustrious General in its true degree.
The conduct and devotion of the most prudent and excellent
Captain-General, so Clement said, had been admirable.
Abandoned by all allies and faced with the inevitable loss of
the place, he had been able to convert the negotiations and
the conclusions into a signal advantage that was beyond all
belief. A similar case, the Pontiff declared, was not to be
found in history. Morosini had won glory for the Republic
and immortalized his own name.

In fact, the wise and prudent of every nation applauded
the issue of the long combat. The circumstances being as they
were, Morosini had chosen the better part of valour and had
done what he could to prevent a greater danger, not only to
innocent families and an exhausted soldiery, but to a con-
siderable remnant of the Venetian fleet which lay in Candiot
waters, and which, but for the capitulation, would have been
utterly destroyed. But Morosini undoubtedly acted without
direct reference to the Senate and, in a part, against the earlier
orders of his Government. He did so because he knew himself
and the other statesmen and military commanders on the spot,
to be in a better position to estimate the instant consequences of
further resistance. The wisdom and the courage of his actions
were more fully revealed what time the newly appointed
Avogador Antonio Corraro brought against him accusations of
violating his country's laws and usurping the sovereign power.

The criticisms of Corraro were essentially those of a carper
whose own life had not been ventured on the cast of a war
he would have conducted otherwise. His complacency, how-
ever, was not so much that of an armchair politician, as of
an advocate with whom prosecution is an instinct and who
is blinded to all intentions and actualities that govern the
actions of the persons he accuses, because of his passion for the
letter of the Law that has been his life-study. Corraro was
also an orator, vehement and ingenious. By him the actions
of Morosini were made to appear all unheroic. He even accused
the Captain-General of deliberately allowing the Turks to take
possession of a bastion of Candia's fortifications in order to
facilitate the capitulation he had already planned. Skilfully

THE GLORY OF THE SETTING SUN 331

did Corraro re-tell the story of Mocenigo's earlier defence
of the Cretan city, in order to disparage the later one by Morosini.
" When the most excellent Captain-General Mocenigo,
of ever-glorious memory, found himself almost constrained by
force and violence to yield the place," declared Corraro
oratoricaUy, " when the assailants pressed into the breaches of
the walls on which they had already planted their standards,
with what a generous and persuasive spirit did he not in that
predicament rally his soldiers ! With sword flashing in his
hand, he thundered out that he would hang by the neck as an
infamous traitor, the first who dared to speak of yielding."
And, according to Corraro, Mocenigo added other words which
were " worthy of being graven on the heart of every zealous
citizen." These were : " A Mocenigo has not received from his
country the command and government of this place to give it to the
Turks ; we ought all to die, and I first, upon the walls of Candia,
as upon so many altars. We ought all to sacrifice our very lives."
In tones of infinite contempt, Corraro followed this
relation with the statement that the city had been thus glori-
ously preserved by Mocenigo, only to be ceded scornfully
by Morosini. Reinforcements from three sources, Rome,
France and the Duke of Mirandola, were already on the way
to Crete, and Candia itself had been sufficiently supplied with
troops to hold out longer, when the Captain-General capitulated.
Corraro omitted to say how small were these aids and how
long, with the exception of the little convoy of the Duke, which
did actually arrive, they would have been a-coming. With
the airy irresponsibility of the eloquent and the prejudiced,
the Avogador further declared that although Morosini had
himself admitted that he had 1500 infantry still alive, there
had been no considerable sortie made, and no attack repulsed
for some months past. " Oh, most excellent Signor Captain-
General ! " exclaimed the advocate in peroration, " Is this
the ardent zeal of your soul, the effect of your promises, the
fruit of your voyage ? How have you vindicated by deed
the protests made to the public ? No, it was your tongue and
not your heart spoke. You gave words, nothing but words ! "
A notable effect was produced on the Great Council by
this speech. The fall of Candia had made the pride of Venice

332 THE DOGES OF VENICE

smart, and there were many who longed to believe that the
fault of one man had brought about the loss of this important
outpost and colony of their once extensive empire. But there
arose another orator whose defence of the General was as
passionate as the attack had been. The Cavaliere Giovanni
Sagredo, a kinsman of the reigning Doge, NicoLO Sagredo,
gave a graphic account of all the difficulties Morosini had had
to contend against, and all the damage that, throughout the
war, had been inflicted on the Turks and borne by the Venetians.
Not only had Candia and its vicinity become, in the course
of the years of its defence, a place of carnage and horror, which
the later incessant vomit of fire had rendered a veritable
inferno, but without its resisting walls 130,000 Turks had
perished, as had also many slave-soldiers impressed from
Natolia and Greece. Within the walls, during the same time,
280 noble citizens of Venice had poured out their life-blood
and over 100,000 Christian soldiers from many lands met
their death. Other treasures had been also sacrificed in pro-
fusion, and to reinforce and provision the garrison over ,800
ships had been employed. It was true the country had been
lost, but there had been won a glory greater than any yet
published by the trumpets of fame. The fighting in Candia
had not been, as at La Rochelle and Ostend, by cannon alone,
but sword in hand and breast to breast, every inch of ground
had been contested. In the end, some territory had been
sacrificed to a barbarous power, nevertheless the Republic
had prosecuted a glorious vendetta. The Turks themselves
confessed that not since the beginning of their Empire, had
the acquisition of any land cost them so dear. The defence
had been also glorious for Venice and a benefit to Christianity ;
for while the Turks threw all their forces on to the Candiot
attack, Germany, Poland and the Knights of Malta had been
able to resist the menaces of the Porte in other directions.
And after all this, there was talk of ruining Morosini ! What
would the Turks say when they learned that the Republic
repaid the services of its captains in such a manner ? What
would Christian nations think of a Senate that had the
reputation of justice, piety and generosity ?

Continuing, Sagredo answered more directly the attacks

THE GLORY OF THE SETTING SUN 333

of Corraro by proving the extremity to which Candia had
been reduced; an extremity attested by the opinions of
of&cers who had been there. Sagredo was not unqualified
to speak of the condition of the island and the Venetian needs
in it, for not only had he gone on embassies for his country to
France and Germany, and so had had to be informed of what was
taking place in all countries to which the Venetian rule extended,
but he had been sent fifteen years before on a special mission
to Oliver Cromwell for the purpose of stirring England to
aid the Venetian army already in stress at Candia. That
aid had not been sent, but Sagredo, like every other patriot
of Venice, had followed the course of the war, and was now able
to quote accounts given by eye-witnesses of Morosini's conduct.

He contended also that it was impossible for Morosini
to have been guilty of the preconceived design of sacrificing the
city in his charge, since it would have been all to his honour
and advantage to have held the place longer. He who had
for years been ever ready to expose and risk his life at his
country's call, could not have changed Jiis disposition in a
single moment.

But Corraro was not convinced. He insisted that since
the dignity of Procurator of St. Mark had not been conferred
on Morosini by a legal election, but by an exceptional decree
made in the same moment in which Candia had been ceded,
an inquiry into the whole affair was necessary and ought to
be undertaken by the Great Council.

A loud hubbub greeted this announcement, which challenged
the custom of referring all matters of an inquisitorial nature
to the Council of the Ten. The voting on Corraro's proposition
was about equally divided for and against, but no resolution
was passed. Two days later, Corraro again brought forward
his proposition, and with such mordant criticism of Sagredo's
contribution to the debate, that the Councillors began to take
sides with acrimony, and there had been a scandalous scene of
conflict, had not Michele Foscarini, whose subsequent History
of Affairs Venetian was dedicated to The most serene Prince
Francesco Morosini, Doge of Venice, intervened with some
well-considered words that quieted, if they did not persuade,
all excited spirits.

334 THE DOGES OF VENICE

Foscarini argued that the election of Morosini to be Pro-
curator had not been contrary to the laws and usages of the
^Republic, since that dignity had always been reserved for
meritorious citizens who had served their country. It had
been often conferred on those who had aided the public funds
with gifts of money, was it not therefore fitting that it should
be given to one who had shed his blood and hazarded his life in
his country's service ? " Corraro had expressed to the Great
Council his intention of prosecuting an inquiry into what had
taken place in Candia. That would be an act of justice, be-
cause inquisitions established the innocence or guilt of parties,
but his present request set aside the laws in an objectionable
manner. He proposed, so he said, to formulate a process, and
he began by condemning the subject of it. Before proving the
fault, he passed sentence on it. He wished to degrade a respected
citizen without knowing him to be a culprit. This was to act
contrary to the laws and to introduce abhorrent innovations,
not allowable under the prudent institutions of their govern-
ment, even in minor cases. This one concerned reputation
and was grave. Votes should not be extorted by accusations
and insinuations." In conclusion, Foscarini urged that it
mattered little to the Republic that to the number of those who
had won the dignity of Procurator of St. Mark, Morosini was
added; what was much more important, was that citizens
should not be estranged by dissensions, and that spiteful acts
of private interest should not disturb public tranquillity.

By the voting which quickly followed this speech, Corraro's
motion was rejected, and Morosini confirmed in the ofiice —
albeit a supernumerary one — of Procurator of St. Mark.
After this decision, Corraro reverted to his first proposal and
an Inquisitor — Erizzo — was appointed. His inquiry was
divided into two parts : one concerned the defence of Candia ;
the other, the management of the exchequer there. Examina-
tions were duly made, and when the case was concluded, it was
found that the uniform feeling of all the witnesses — who
numbered a host, and were of many ranks and nationalities —
was that nothing had been lacking in the defenders in the way
of courage and perseverance. Resistance had been carried to
the last grade of possibility. In regard to the money def alca-

THE GLORY OF THE SETTING SUN 335

tions, a minister of the Commission of Marine was found to
have made false entries in the public books, and, on suspicion of
association with him in his malversations, a high Paymaster of
the Navy and a Proveditor of Candia, with the Captain-General
himself, were imprisoned. In the end, however, the facts were
made clear, and the innocence of Morosini acknowledged by
the Senate and acclaimed by his fellow-citizeiis. Yet greater
honours and louder plaudits were in store for him, who had
to win sharper battles and employ cleverer strategies than any
he had appUed to the defence of Candia.

In an interregnum following thp death of Doge Alvise
CoNTARiNi in January 1684, Francesco Morosini was again
nominated Captain-General of the Venetian forces. He had
been proposed for the ducal ofifice, but it was so strongly felt
that it would be for the greater service and glory of his country
to make him Captain-General, that his name was passed over
and Marcantonio Giustinian chosen.

This Doge had been only four months on the throne when
on St. Mark's Day, 25tb April, while he was attending a festival
service in the Basilica in the company of the Imperial Ambas-
sador the Count Thum, there arrived from Vienna an invitation
to aU Christian Princes to join the " Holy Alliance " of Leopold,
Emperor of Austria, and John iii (Sobieski), King of Poland,
for the re-possession of lands snatched from them by the
Turks. The response of Venice to this appeal, and the nego-
tiations entered into concerning it, wakened in the mind of the
Captain-General his great design of re-conquering the Morea.
Venice became the third party to the Alliance.

Very pompously was Morosini sent forth, and signal were
the marks of honour which indicated his full restoration to the
rank of a nation's hero. A grand new galley, one hundred and
fifty feet long and twenty wide, with all kinds of extra-
ordinary dimensions of poop, masts and sails, and having
forty-one oars sixty feet long, each oar being managed by eight
rowers, was built for him. Many standards and banners of
wondrous meaning floated from the masts of this vessel and,
because it was the flag-ship of the Captain-General, three
lanterns were swung from a staff that rose from the poop.
The decorations of the interior, as well as of the outer supports

336 THE DOGES OF VENICE

of the poop, were marvellous, with gilded bambini in high
relief and friezes of minute intaglio. A cannolato (? laurel
branch) was upheld on either side by a gilded group of five
Turks in chains, modelled in various postures. There were
also many other sculptured and gilded objects of significance,
and the cabins of Morosini were lined with mirrors, pictures
and trophies of arms. Cannons, great and small, were posted
aU round the deck, and two windows gave good light to the
dining-saloon, which was furnished with tables and chairs of
a comfortable kind, and divided from another compartment
by crimson damask curtains fringed with gold. In this inner
cabin the tables were covered with maps, charts, sketches of
walled towns and designs of fortifications. Books of a kind
that would be instructive to the commander of a naval
expedition were also ranged there ; and a great compass, with
appliances to register all the changes of the wind, was a
scientific treasure for Morosini's own use. Six windows,
through which a look-out on all sides could be kept, gave
the last touch of convenience to this splendid yet workmanlike
cabin.

The embarkation of Morosini was marked by the usual
ceremonies. He sailed first to the Church of the Salute for a
Benediction on his enterprise, then to San Giorgio Maggiore,
where he assumed the full habit of a Captain-General. On
this island the senators had assembled to accompany his
galley to the Lido. Preceded by the Ducal Court on
the Bucintoro, surrounded and followed by innumerable
gondolas and other heavier and lighter barks, and saluted
by cannon shots, the fanfare of trumpets and the popular
shouts of Vittoria I Vittoria ! Morosini came to the Lido, where
he received the farewell visits of the nobility and had con-
signed to him 100,000 zecchini for purposes of the expedition
other than those already provided for.

The account of the sailing of his fleet from the Lido to
Rovigno in Istria, and all along the Dalmatian coast by the
islands of Lesina and Curzola, on to Ragusa and Corfu, reads
like a history repeated of the progresses of the Doges who first
went forth to claim the far inheritance of Venice. Everywhere
the welcomes of a vociferous populace and the homage of

THE GLORY OF THE SETTING SUN 337

high officials of Church and State, were so many acts of recog-
nition of the sovereignty of Venice, and Morosini, though
bom out of due time, being either too early or too late to
rehabilitate his country's greatness and preserve her dominance
of wide colonial possessions, knew how to accept reverence
in the princely manner. He knew when to go forth to meet,
and when to receive in highest state, the aids of money, men
and ships, it was the abject of his cruise to obtain, and which
were indeed granted him, for quite a second army was formed
by levies made in the Dalmatian and island ports. Upon his
arrival at Corfu, his fleet was augmented by small squadrons
sent to his assistance by the Pope, the Duke of Tuscany and
the Grand Hospitaller of Malta.

His first act of hostility was the bombardment of the
strongly fortified port of Santa Maura, and it is interesting
to read the letter from Francesco Morosini, Cavalier e, Procuratore
and Generalissimo of the " potent Armada of the Serene Re-
public of Venice " to Bichir Aga (the Turkish governor) and
all inhabitants of Santa Maura. In this letter, the Captain-
General referred not at all to the Holy Alliance and the oaths
of the Powers to punish and despoil Turkey, but declared
the harbouring of pirates in the Turkish islands to be the
cause of the gathering of the fleets of Venice and her allies.
The barbarous corsairs, encouraged by the asylums offered
them, had become insulting, hostile and insufferably dangerous
to the persons and goods of Venetian subjects, and thereby
the anger of the Lord God had been justly provoked. It was
the intention, therefore, of the serene and glorious Prince of
Venice to pour out on Bichir Aga and his- islanders the first
shots of his indignation, and even to deal the most terrific
blows which would result in the irremediable desolation of
the whole fortress. Before carrying out this intention, it was
desired with a clemency not deserved by those addressed* to
g^ve warning that if at the end of that day they had not
resolved to yield the fortress into the hands of the Venetian
Generalissimo, there wotild be no further time given, but with
every sort of aggravation their city would be put to the
flames, and so reduced that not one stone would be left upon
another, and no pardon given either to sex or age, but with
22

338 THE DOGES OF VENICE

the sacrifice of the lives of their families and of all their goods,
they would have to pay the penalty of their barbarous ill-
doings.

The Tutk repUed to the "respected and honoured
among the nations," the Captain-General, that his letter
had been received and its contents understood. There was
this to be said for the ships of the Levant, they were of use in
business as was well known, and would be of more use, but that
they had been driven forth from Turkish retreats . The Emperor
of the Turks had forbidden the possession of galleys to his sub-
jects. Thinking that Morosini was in friendship with the most
high Emperor, he, Bichir Aga, had been neighbourly with him
till this day, but now that he sought an occasion of strife, it
was pleasing to God that they who opposed themselves to
those who served Him, should be answered with counter-thrusts.

The story of Morosini's conquest of the Morea is a breathless
tale of activity, judgment and daring, culminating in his
election to the ducal throne while stUl at war with the Turks
in Greek waters . Four years passed from the time Marc Antonio
Giustinian was chosen Doge in order that Francesco Morosini
might go forth as Captain-General to fight the battles of
Venice abroad, to the time when, with his army invalided by
the plague at Porto Porro in Cephalonia, he received the news
of his own accession as 127th Doge of Venice, and 4th Doge
of the family of Morosini. Never had the supreme ofiice been
conferred on any citizen of the Republic with more perfect
acclamation, and it was resolved in the Great Council that no
expense should be spared in celebrating his accession. At the
same time, it was intimated to him that he need not at once
return to the capital for his coronation. That could take
place later at a convenient opportunity. He had accom-
plished great things, and greater were expected of him, but
it was a curious fact that few successes attended his arms after
he had once worn the improvised Berrettone, made in imitation
of the ancient Corno.

It was a quaint sight, and one of an admirable significance,
to behold His Serenity in a mantle of crimson with a cape of
rich cloth of gold, seated high on the poop of his flagship with
banners and streamers in the wind above him, and galleys and

THE GLORY OF THE SETTING SUN 339

barks, crowded with soldier-citizens, disposed in lines around
his vessel of state. In his left hand Morosini held his baton
of command, and while cannons were fired and muskets
discharged voUeys of salute, the great officers of his fleet,
approaching one by one, bowed low to kiss the hem of his
mantle. Last in this procession came the Proveditor of
the Field, Daniel Delfino, with General Konigsmark, the
Swedish Captain, who with his regiment of Norsemen was a
strong arm employed by Venice for the campaign. These two
high ones having taken seats on either hand the throne. Doge
Morosini rose and expressed with " most dignified and high
conceits " the consolation he found in their humble respects,
and the great fervour he nourished of sacrificing himself for
their glory. He was certain he would content them and make
capital of his own valour, of which he had given proof in many
experiences. He added that by the present distinguishing of his
merit, he would remain always remunerated and aggrandized.
Mass was then sung beneath a canopy erected on the deck,
and for this His Serenity knelt on two large cushions of velvet,
richly trimmed with gold.

For three days the army was given over to festivity. At
the expense of the Doge, copious draughts of wine were served
to every soldier and sailor, no matter of what rank or nationality,
and each night the fleet was illuminated and fireworks let off,
while cannons boomed out salutes, and muskets rattled
feux de joie. Wonderful indeed was the succession of courts
held by Morosini, to which high officers from other Levantine
stations hurried to kiss the ducal mantle and pay their respects
to the hero-Doge. Even there in an island harbour, far from
any capital city, the Venetians 'contrived to have the
Emblematic displays they so greatly loved. Resourceful
minds and deft fingers responded to the strong artistic instinct
of these seasoned mariners and fierce fighters, with the result
that on successive evenings there appeared upon the waters
of the port, great " machines " towed by many barks, repre-
senting, variously. Verdant Gardens with a high Pyramid in
the midst, a gigantic Lion tearing in pieces a Crescent Moon,
and a Fortress surrounding a Mosque, with figures about it in
attitudes of defence. These were the set-pieces of the grand

340 THE DOGES OF VENICE

firework displays, and, needless to say, the Pyramid and the
Mosque were both set alight and gi'adually destroyed with an
infinite discharge of rockets, while the Lion of St. Mark, after
utterly demolishing the Moon of Turkey, himself went off in a
blaze of glory marvellous to behold.

The fetes of Morosini's enthronization over, both Doge
and army returned to hard work again, but from that time
forward Morosini no longer dined with his officers, and he
signed himself always, II Doge Capitan-Generale.

The high title seems, however, to have brought no power
to his arm. He was still the same Francesco Morosini, the
man of great designs and indomitable courage, but he was
falling into a mortal malady and had much to contend with in
the constant outbreaks of disease among the troops in general,
and in the inefficiency and cowardice of many of his mercenaries.
No charge of shortcoming or lack of courage can, however,
be brought against the Swedish contingent, so long as it was
led by their valiant Captain Konigsmark. But when his
death capped the other disasters of the siege of Negropont,
even the Norsemen quailed before the tasks laid on them.
It was in the re-conquest of either Negropont or Candia,
if not both, that Morosini had intended, as he said in his first
speech from his ship-board throne, to employ " the capital of his
valour." It had been decided at the Council of War held
immediately after the fetes at Porto Porro, to attack Negro-
pont in preference to Candia, which was known to have been
put into a strong condition of defence. But Negropont had
also been refortified, and all the determination of the Doge
and all his daring engineering devices of building great towers
from which to assault the walls were of little avail. The
Turk held out, and Morosini could only play the prince, in
sending messages of consolation to the despairing widow
of Konigsmark, who had accompanied her husband to the
south, and to whom two years before, at Navarino, the Captain'
General had sent complimentary gifts of sweetmeats. On
that happier occasion, Carlotta Konigsmark had been on board
the warship Jacob's Ladder, which had subsequently borne her
husband and herself to Modone. Now it was the ducal task to
put at her service another vessel to take the remains of her

THE GLORY OF THE SETTING SUN 341

beloved, herself and her children to Venice, whence, in accord-
ance with the instructions of the warrior's will, his body was to
be conveyed to Haga for burial with his ancestors.

We are told that the kind solicitation of the Doge gave
much consolation to the sad widow, and indeed Morosini's
instinct for the art of courtesy was true. For the ceremony of
interring her husband's viscera, which had been separated
from his body by the embalmer, Carlotta Konigsmark provided
a great quantity of candles, and to these were added some from
the Doge and his Capi di Mare. But Morosini did not allow
the courtesy of the prince or the sympathy of the man to
hinder his duty as Generalissimo of the Venetian Forces, and
he gave the order for the omission of the usual volley-firing
over the grave, in order that the loss of the first Captain in his
army might be kept from the enemy, whose courage would
undoubtedly have been renewed by knowledge of it, and who
might have sent out vessels to intercept the passage of the
funeral cortege through the iEgean Sea.

In the month following that in which Konigsmark was
laid low, Morosini himself was stricken by illness. Though
advised to retire from the field of action, he stuck to his post
and was soon busy again, establishing forms of government for
conquered places, fixing prices of comestibles and generally
preparing to extend his campaign. But again he was attacked
by iUness, and this time he did not rally. The perennial
youthfulness of his body and spirit had begun to faU. Yet
he did not give in until a third attack of feverish symptoms
and other His came on him, when at last he relinquished the
command of the army and set his ship's prow towards Venice.
As convoy of his galley of state, there sailed a number of other
Venetian vessels (some homebound, others detailed to ports
on the coast of Dalmatia) and a few foreign galleys that had
been sent out to his aid. Confined to his bed for the first part
of the voyage, too Ul to receive official visits at Zante or Corfu,
and quarantined at Spalatro on account of the plague at that
port. His Serenity was so far recovered before he reached
Zara, where Christmas Day was religiously observed, that
he took daily exercise for the preservation of his strength.
On a particular occasion when the vessel was stormbound

342 THE DOGES OF VENICE

and it was impossible to exercise on the open deck, physical
feats were performed by Morosini and his officers in the
cabinet of study adjoining the saloon, and were so long continued
that the floor of the apartment gave way, and all within it were
precipitated on to the deck below; but all, including the
aged Doge, escaped miraculously unhurt.

From Zara the Doge passed to Rovigno and on to Parenza,
whete it was customary to pick up pilots for the Gulf, and
whence a felucca was dispatched to announce the approach
of His Serenity and to arrange the date of his solemn progress
to St. Mark. At Parenza, on the 4th January 1690, Morosini
received from the recently elevated Pope, Alexander viii,
a sword and cap of maintenance, which was a present identical
with that sent by Innocent xi to the King of Poland. In a
letter accompanying these gifts it was commanded that the
Papal Nuncio to Venice should set the cap on the Doge's head,
and place the sword, unsheathed, in his hand, thus proclaiming
him the First Warrior of the World in the Christian service.

To teU of the pompous reception given to him in Venice,
of the order in which the flotillas of war, trade and pleasure
sailed out to meet him, of the religious ceremonies, ambassa-
dorial greetings and popular rejoicings, would only be to relate
again a tale of celebrations such as the Venetians ever made
for the victorious entries of their heroes and the public honour-
ing of their Doges. The failures of the last year of his cam-
paign in the Morea were all forgotten. They were but the
fortunes of a war, glorious in its beginning and to be glorious in
the end. The Doge Morosini stood before them in the flesh
where his bust in bronze had for two years memoralized him
Hving — a distinction few Doges received even after death.

It was a comment when Morosini walked to his coronation
in San Marco with his staff in his hand, that he carried a symbol
of a rule too autocratic to be extended over a free people.
They were not yet all dead or all converted, who had com-
plained of his illegal assumption of sovereign power in Candia.
In general, however, it was well Uked that the hero-Doge was a
person of imperial mind ; one who knew how to rule as well as
how to reign. The conqueror who had regained for Venice,
between the years 1684 and 1688, Santa Maura, Corone, Cala-

THE GLORY OF THE SETTING SUN 343

mata, Navarino, Modone, NapoliinRoumania, Patrassa, Sparta
and Athens, was as great a favourite after he had failed to
annex Negropont as when he had just won the first series of
brilliant victories for which the title of Peloponnesiaco was be-
stowed on him, and his brother and his brother's son created
hereditary knights. How great a favourite of the people
Morosini had then become, was to be gauged by the popular
determination in the following year to have him for their Doge.
On the portals of St. Mark and the walls of the Ducal Palace
there was written many times, " We want the Peloponnesan " ;
and a placard was hung in the Piazza bearing the words :
" The Peloponnesan has given us a kingdom, let us give him a
crown."

AU the greatness of Morosini did not lie in his prowess as a
soldier, in his sagacity as a statesman, nor in his bearing as
a Prince. He had taste for science, learning and art, and
was, for his time, an advanced sanitarian, as is evidenced by
his strict regulations for the segregation of cases of cholera and
fever occurring in his army, and for the thorough washing
of the clothing and sheets of those of his troops suffering from
contagious maladies. That the gaUey-slaves to whom was
assigned the laundry work for the disease-stricken, could not
be preserved from terrible decimation, was not the fault of
Morosini, but of the imperfect science of a time in which disin-
fectants and antiseptics were undreamed of.

Reading his story as it has been most fully related to us, we
find the passion of his greatness and the pathos of his destiny
specially revealed on two occasions. To take the last first, it
was in Athens, when the Captain-General entered to find many
of the noblest monuments of the city's antique splendour
wantonly destroyed, and, in particular — ^whether by intention
or accident — the Parthenon rudely shattered and deprived of
interior grace, that he exclaimed with who shall say how much
regret ? — " O Athens ! O nursery of the arts ! to what hast
thou come ? " He could not leave for future depredations of
the barbarous Turk all the treasures of beauty he found there,
so he ordered the packing of many statues for transport to
Venice. Unfortunately, the blunders of the unskilful cause
injury as great as the spites of the vicious, and most of the

344 THE DOGES OF VENICE

priceless mementos of his occupation of Athens were broken
as they were being shipped. The colossal lions which guard
to this day the entrance to the Arsenal in Venice, were, how-
ever, brought in safety from the city of classic wonder.

And how could Morosini, or any patriot-Doge, have dis-
played more bravely the greatness of his zeal for his country's
welfare and of his own fine spirit as a man, than when, at an
advanced age and afflicted with pain and illness brought on by
the fret of years and of prolonged sojourns with his armies in
unhealthy places, he declared himself ready for his country's
sake to go again to the Morea as Captain-General of the Forces ?
No wonder that, for the first and only time in history, a Doge
raised his biretta and, standing bare-headed in the Senate,
thanked the electors for the honour they had deigned to pay
him. It was no desire for fame, no anxiety to make show
of a superior ability, that moved Morosini at that hour to
respond to the Senate's call. The greatness of the man was
shown in his simple sense of those prerogatives which cen-
turies of corrections of the ducal promises had yielded to the
Doge of Venice, and which were to have many duties and few
rights, to be pledged to an abnegation and an impartiality
superhuman, to count his life as belonging to a commonwealth
he could never refuse to serve, although it could at any
moment deprive him of the office to which he had been ele-
vated ; nominally for life, actually for the period of his good
behaviour and his satisfactory discharge of his various offices.

" Old and infirm as I am, I will do your bidding, and I thank
you for fixing my doom," must have been, in effect, the words
in Morosini's mind if they did not all issue from his mouth, as
he stood, biretta in hand, to accept the fresh charge of the
Republic. He knew if he went to the Morea he could never
return.

Two Savii of military affairs were appointed to act with
him in the command. The prestige of his name and fame was
to be given to the expedition, but now that he set forth a
Doge, he had to be prevented from making himself a tyrant-
founder of a dynasty, by as many restrictions as could possibly
be laid upon his autonomy and power.

Walking between the Papal Nuncio and the French Am-

THE GLORY OF THE SETTING SXJN 345

bassador, Morosini attended in state a solemn service of bene-
diction on the day that he took ship in the Bucintoro for a passage
to the Lido where his galley lay. Arches of triumph, with
banners over all, marked the way of the Doge from the basilica
to the riva and on again across the Lido to the sea.

Viva il principe e capitano ! the people cried on every
side. The crowned Head of the Republic could make no
reply. He could only do his duty. Malvasia had been taken
from the Turks by Morosini's first successor in the Peloponnesus.
For Malvasia, the Captain-General now sailed. Thence he
hastened to the defence of Corinth, but the advanced season
prevented his gaining any definite advantage, and he died in
Nauplia, where he had gone into winter quarters, on 9th
January 1694.

The memorials of this last of the Venetian hero-Doges are
various. The Palazzo Morosini holds many relics to be viewed
by sight-seers, and his fame in story is of a kind to endure even
longer than the bronze of the bust in the Sala dello Scrutinio.
Yet he failed to consolidate the possessions he gained for his
country. It was not, perhaps, to be expected of his genius
that he could confer a constitution on the colonies of Venice
or make laws to hold them fast to an Empress-city, itself in the
early processes of disintegration. The mistake of his rules
for the conquered provinces of the Morea, was that he made
Venice too dominant, not to say too domineering. He forgot
the once-established custom of Venetian conquerors to allow
to subject-nations their own laws and trading customs, pro-
vided these did not actually infringe the liberties and rights
of the Queen of the Adriatic. The imperious toU demanded
on aU supplies and merchandise sent to Venice, drove the trade
of Greece back to the Turks, and thus divided Christian sub-
jects from a Christian government and made the barbarous
Mussulman seem, in some respects, a nearer friend to the
Levant trader than the educated Venetian, with his haughty
insistence on the infallibility of his governmental systems and
his right to heavy duties.

CHAPTER XIX
THE AFTERMATH

A.D. 1694 TO 1779

IT was significant of the character of the century to follow,
that the Doge who reigned during the six last years of
the seventeenth century owed his celebrity to the fact
of the sumptuous " coronation" of his Dogaressa. Morosini
had come to the throne a bachelor, and the successes of his
rule, as of his preceding command of the navies, had brought
such exultation to Venice that the people once more felt
themselves inheritors pf a royal destiny. They were disposed
therefore to flourish anew every emblem of their sovereignty.

It was assumed that the provision of loth January 1645,
forbidding coronation fetes and processions to future Dogaresse,
on account of the great expense of them to the guilds and the
populace was truly formulated, as was stated in the preamble
of the Act, because of the depression of the time. So Venice
being jubilant again, it was deemed no infringement of
the law to crown, with all rejoicings and display, the very
popular wife of the very popular and wealthy Doge Silvestro
Valier.

Further victories had been won in the Morea by Morosini's

successor as Captain-General, Alessandro Molini, and there

was confidence throughout the Dogado that Venice retained

her place as a great world-power, and would long hold her

Empire in the East. Venetians could not see that the glories

of Morosini's heroism were the sunset-flames of a day drawing

to its close. The sun of their country's greatness sank when

Morosini laid his bdton down. There remained, however, a

brilliant aftermath, which those who stood in the light of it,

took, at first, to be the dawning of another day.

346

THE AFTERMATH 347

With this light shining on her, Elisabetta Valier, in a robe of
cloth of gold and sable, with the long white veil which to the
end of the independence of Venice continued to be the sign
of the dignity of a Dogaressa, falling from her jewelled corno,
and the state cross of diamonds pendent from a necklace
round her throat, passed from the Church of St. Mark to the
throne in the Grand Council Chamber, surrounded by her
ladies. Seated high, she received the Privy Councillors, the
Procurators, the Savii, the Secretaries of the Senate, Avogadori
of the Commune, Heads of the Ten and other officers ; while
a few days later, again clothed regally, she accepted, by
special permission of the Government, the compliments of
the Ambassadors. Separate courts were held by her for the
new Ambassador from Spain and the Legate Extraordinary of
the Pope. Visits of ceremony from many home dignitaries,
as well as from foreign representatives, were also paid to this
Dogaressa on recurring anniversaries of her birthday.

Princely respects of all kinds seem, indeed, to have been
allowed to her without grudging of their expense or suspicion
of their abuse. The special oselle struck for her coronation, dis-
played her portrait with the legend : " Elisabeth Quirina Valeria
Ducissa Venetiarum, 1694." Busts of her are still to be seen in
the Museo Civico, and the most pompous monument of all the
assertive memorials of Doges and Dogaresse in the Church
of 55. Giovanni e Paolo, is that which encloses the remains of
Doge Bertruccio Valier (1658), and of Doge Silvestro, his son,
with the Dogaressa EUsabetta. For the erection of this huge
memorial, with its rich baroque work in marble, its sculptures
by followers of Bernini and the statues of the three com-
memorated ones prominent in the midst, Doge Silvestro left
50,000 ducats in his will, expressing his wish that the design
should be sculptured in accordance with the prudence of his
most serene consort. The tomb as a whole has been called
" a delirium of art." We need not take it as necessarily
representative of the taste of Elisabetta Valier, since the
prudence her spouse confided in was doubtless more pecuniary
than artistic. It is, however, significant of its age — an age
of flaunting vulgarity and unabashed self-assertion.

The portraits of SUvestro Valier's Dogaressa show her to

348 THE DOGES OF VENICE

have been a handsome woman, although, at the time of her
coronation, threads of silver already paled the bright gold of
her hair, and her cheeks had lost the roses of youth. Com-
posure and serenity were attributes of her beauty that marked
her worthy of her elevation. The subject of much of the
bombastic eulogy practised in her day and place, she revealed
herself in letters of hers that are preserved, a woman of
simplicity, albeit of culture and dignity. In the dedication
of certain dissertations on a fire that broke out in the Con-
servatorio of the Hospital at Venice, to Sue Serenitd EUsabetta
Querini Valier, dogaressa di Venezia e governatrice del Pio Con-
servatorio, the writer (Francesco Caro) stated that her grand
Corno had been, for many of the miserable of her time, a most
rich Cornucopia ! From this we may judge that she patron-
ized the hospital and was charitable to the poor.

But not in these respects may we regard her pre-eminence
as significant of the quality of the eighteenth century. It is
simply the fact of her exaltation as a woman, that shows a time
at hand when feminine influence was to be strong in Venice.
Unfortunately, the women who most dominated Venetian
society in the reigns to follow that of Silvestro Valier, did not
resemble his Dogaressa. It was an age of levity that was
to be born. The revolutionary wave of learning, enlighten-
ment and the passion for freedom that was to roll over
Europe, and produce, quite abundantly in other countries, blue-
stockings, muses, femmes philosophes and saints of philanthropy
and reform, left upon the lagoon shores the froth of its fructify-
ing waters. In Venice in the eighteenth century, society was
stagnant, and manners were distorted by the fantastic notions
and self-indulgent foibles of an aristocracy that had become
effete.

Yet there were still in Venice loyal citizens who worked for
their country's defence, and believed the Republic's survival as
a world-power to be destined. There were nobles who lived
nobly, and diplomats, soldiers and politicians who rendered
faithful service to the State. But for all the activity and
worth of some, the actions of the generality were as the post-
ures and grimaces of mimes of their own past greatness. They
still preserved their antique way ; their grace of movement.

THE AFTERMATH 349

grandeur of bearing and pride of utterance. But Venice had
become decrepit in heart and intellect. Her governmental
forms were fixed. Expansion was no longer possible to her
political coiistitution. Development along any lines of progress
had ceased.

There was a prognostication of the insignificance of the
men called to carry on the ducal tradition in this last of the
centuries to see any Doges at all in Venice, in the character of
the one — Alvise Mocenigo — who ascended the throne in the
year 1700. Throughout the history of his nine years' reign
his name is hardly mentioned. He was likely enough a
respectable official, but that was all. The same may be said
of Giovanni Cornaro, who presided over the fetes attending
the visit of the King of Denmark and Norway in February
1709. It was the end of a winter of great severity, when
canals and lagoons were frozen hard, and men could walk as
far as Mestre on the ice. Three cannon with appropriate
inscriptions were cast at the Arsenal, under the eyes of the
King, and subsequently presented to His Majesty by the Doge.

At the time that this particular exchange of compliments
between Norway and Venice took place, much fighting
and arming were going on between other and greater
European powers. English Marlborough had already won
his immortal name. Malplaquet was fought only a few
months later, and Venice, to her honour, tried to prevent
the invasions of Italian territory by Austria, France and
Spain, by drawing together in closer union all the Princes of
the peninsula. The chief of these were the Pope and the
Duke of Savoy and Sardinia — Vittorio Amadeo.

To Utrecht, where the representatives of France, Spain,
England and Holland met for the restoration of amity in
1712, there was sent as plenipotentiary for Venice Carlo
RuzziNi, a seasoned diplomat, who had previously repre-
sented his country at the signing at Carlovitz in 1699, of the
Peace that was intended to settle all differences between
Venice and Turkey. Ruzzini and the representatives of the
united dukedom of Savoy and Sardinia, were the only Italians
admitted to the Conference at Utrecht, although all the States
of Italy had sent delegates to the Dntch town.

350 THE DOGES OF VENICE

From the day of his arrival, Carlo Ruzzini was most
honourably treated, and ambassadors and ministers of other
powers were courteously forward in telling him that they
looked upon Venice as the chief protectress of Italy at that
juncture — a time in which Austria was greatly extending her
territories. This character for his country was satisfactory
to Ruzzini, who had been charged by his Government to seek
an indemnity for the damages suffered by Venice in the recent
wars (when at least one German army had entered her terri-
tory), and to keep in view the general interests of Italy.

Of the intelligence of Ruzzini there can be no doubt, but
he lacked the force to press his views and seize his advantages.
With argument he. was always ready enough, and he did
not fail to perceive the true intentions and opinions of those
he conversed with. His long talks with Lord Strafford and
the Bishop of Bristol, as with the plenipotentiary of Louis xrv,
the ministers of other Italian states and the ambassadors of
the Duke of Savoy, resulted in shrewd comments on the
attitudes of each. Of Lord Strafford, who assured him that
England had not spent such vast sums on the recent war in
order that it should terminate in either France or Austria
obtaining a preponderant power, Ruzzini wrote, " All the
same the good intentions he displays in words do not appear
in effects. The work of peace in that quarter will have to be
advanced by more arduous stages and for other and greater
interests. His impatience for peace is not active enough
for it to be joined with solicitude for its conclusion,"

Ruzzini seems, however, to have been slighty reassured of
the good faith of England by the Bishop of Bristol, who told
him that Queen Anne found it necessary to procure the balance
against the Imperial power, and gave him to understand
that Her Majesty would enter into any measure that could
assure the liberty of Italy. For all these declarations of
favour, no definite pledges— either privately or at the Con-
gress — were given by " perfidious Albion," and although the
Abb6 de Polignac, on behalf of France, said that notwith-
standing his master had little cause to be pleased with the
princes of Italy, he would continue to protect them, Ruzzini
saw very clearly that the French design for both Savoy and

THE AFTERMATH 351

Venice was simply to make them buffers of neutrality be-
tween the two greater dominions, and that France was no friend
of a positive alliance of the princes of Italy. Yet it was the
smaller principalities of the peninsula itself that Ruzzini
found least tractable. Savoy was effusive in professions of a
desire for a more intimate union with Venice in particular
and all Italy in general, but the lesser States were far from
being agreed upon the desirabiUty of keeping Austria out of
Italy. They all approved the idea, but expressed fears lest
the expulsion of the Emperor should leave a way open for the
preponderance of the influence of Vittorio Amadeo. In the
end the Treaty of Utrecht was signed on the nth of April
1713 by France, England, Holland, Portugal, Prussia and
Savoy. Later on Spain also joined in. There were some
redistributions of territory made, some compensations for loss
allowed, some acquisitions — such as England's of Gibraltar
and Majorca confirmed, but Venice gained nothing definite ;
not even an indemnity for damage. The presence of Ruzzini
at the board of deliberation did, however, maintain the re-
putation of Venice as a force in Italy.

In the eighteen years that passed between the signing
of the Treaty and the election of Carlo Ruzzini to be Doge,
little happened to Venice but disaster. In December 1714
the Turks again declared war on account of a Venetian seizure
of a Turkish treasure-ship, and because of a quarrel the Otto-
man Government had with Montenegro concerning a refugee
whom the commandant at Cattaro refused to give up. In
the conflict that followed, nearly all the conquests of Morosini
were lost, one by one. Corfu had been taken too, but
for a timely victory of the Austrians at Petervaradino, which
compelled the Turks to raise the siege of the Venetian Island,
the heroic defence of which had already cost the Ottoman
attacking force heavy losses of men. But the spoils of the
war were more to the Turk, so far as Venice was concerned,
and what she did keep was gained rather because of a bargain
to help Austria in Italy, should the Imperial territory or
forces there be attacked by Spain or the smaller Italian
princes. Yet it was only at the instance of the Turks that
Austria consented to admit Venice to the conferences for

352 THE DOGES OF VENICE

the negotiation of peace. These conferences between Prince
Eugene, the Cavaliere Pietro Grimani (then Ambassador
and thereafter to be Doge of Venice) and Carlo Ruzzini, again
plenipotentiary, were held in Vienna, but the final Congress
sat at Passarowitz, and thither went Ruzzini to demand the
restitution of the ports in Crete that had been left to Venice
after the evacuation of Candia and the Morea, or, in place
of the return of these Grecian possessions, the enlargement
of the Venetian territory in Albania to the shores (in-
cluding the town) of the Lake of Scutari. The Turks, on
their part, asked for all of Moldavia and Wallachia, with
other place thereabouts. At a meeting of the Congress, on
the i6th of July 1718, Ruzzini pleaded and argued on behalf
of the Republic for full six hours, but he could not recover all
that had been lost, and had to content himself with some
trading concessions and the conservation of certain castles in
Dalmatia, Albania and Herzegovina, with land about each
of four miles circumference. The Island of Cerigo and some
other ports were held ; but in exchange for these places,
Turkish communications with Ragusa had to be allowed and
various other positions yielded. Ruzzini could demand and
resison, but he could neither overawe opponents nor perform
dexterous tricks of management.

Just a year before the accession of Ruzzini, another Doge
of the MocENiGO family (Alvise Sebastiano) came to the
throne, and, in spite of the legal enactments made after the
decease of Doge Silvestro Valier, to prevent another Dogaressa
being crowned or treated with the reverence accorded to his
Elisabetta, there was rendered to Pisana (Comer) Mocenigo
as much honour as could be given, short of the supreme compli-
ment of coronation. She was conducted with all the ancient
ceremonies along the Grand Canal to the Piazza, and she wore
on the day of her installation a mantle of cloth of gold, with a
stomacher of brilliants and other j ewels . Indeed, upon the state
robes of both the Doge and Dogaressa Mocenigo, a very large
sum (over 50,000 lire for the Doge alone) was expended. But
dress and splendour were far from being the only characteristics
of this ducal pair. On the contrary, they were both persons
of frugal habit and fond of country life, who saved in the

THE AFTERMATH 353

country when living privately, the money needed to make
their public life in the city worthy of the claims on it. This
Dogaressa, more even than Elisabetta Valier, was of a character
and learning equal to that of the most reputable and most
distinguished of all the wonderful women of the eighteenth
century. According to the translator of a work on " Feminine
Character, Manners and Mind," by a member of the French
Academy, Pisana Mocenigo was a pious and learned matron,
in whom magnanimity, religion and science were resplendent,
and who diverted herself with astronomical observations and
aU brandies of natural history, while her studies in anatomy
were of such an advanced order that she gained the sincere
admiration of two of the leading medical anatomists of her age.

With due allowance for the eulogy of respect for her position,
the Dogaressa Pisana must have been a truly remarkable woman,
and an exception to the rule of lightness being the characteristic
of the Venetian ladies of the eighteenth century, i

As distinguished among Doges for learning, as Pisana
Mocenigo was among the wives of Doges, was Pietro Grimani,
who came to the throne in 1741. Like his predecessor, Carlo
RuzziNi, Grimani's celebrity was all won before his corona-
tion. During his eleven years reign tiU his death at the
age of seventy-five, we find as little trace of his personal in-
fluence on his government as there was of Ruzzini's during
his term of office. We know enough of Ruzzini's earlier
history to understand why his voice was little heard and
his influence httle felt, once he had mounted the throne. He
had laboured long for the federation of Italy and the exclusion
of Austrian influence from the Peninsula. But events came
about that he was powerless to control, and the conclusion of
a peace in Italy on condition of the Emperor exercising dominion
over certain Italian provinces was the chief feature of his
reign. No wonder if the irony of his fate and that of Italy
struck him dumb !

With Pietro Grimani, however, it was not quite the same.
He worked in a realm of more permanent form than the purely
political field of Ruzzini. Yet both failed in the greatness to
hold Venice back from her doom. The failure of Grimani
lay in a too wide apprehension. Discoveries in natural
23

354 THE DOGES OF VENICE

science were to him of more importance than national
concerns. So he let the national concerns go by him, so
far as combating opposition views and advancing schemes of
his own for the preservation of Venice were concerned. But
Grimani must ever be honoured as a reformer of study in the
University of Padua. His statue in marble, with a compli-
mentary inscription, was erected there in his Ufetime, and
when, as Ambassador-Extraordinary to Queen Anne, he lived
in London for a time, he was made a member of the Royal
Society, and delivered there a discourse on the astronomy of
Sir Isaac Newton. He had the fmrther reputation of being
a writer of elegant verses in Italian and English, and of couching
his dispatches and other official documents in distinguished
prose. Such a man could not fail to be solicitous for peace.
How else could the pursuits he most loved be followed ? And
the quiet he valued, he desired for all mankind. Yet during
nearly the whole of his reign the war for the succession of
Maria Theresa to the Austrian throne, waged lustily, and
armies of the great Powers were constantly encountering
each other on the domains of Venice.

The successor of Pietro Grimani, Francesco Loredano,
was the fifth and last Doge of Venice upon whom a Pope of
Rome conferred the Golden Rose. The reason of the com-
pliment was that in Loredano's reign a Venetian prelate (of
the house of Rezzonico) was elected to the papal chair as
Clement xiii, and the exultation of the Republic in seeing
the highest dignity of the Church conferred on one of its own
citizens was so great as to lead the Senate to withdraw a
decree passed 'in 1754, which prohibited Venetians from ob-
taining indulgences, graces and dispensations — " privileges
prejudicial to the interior discipline prescribed by Holy
Church " — unless they were procured in ways authorized,
approved and regularly licensed by the Venetian Government.

Venice was yielding some of her ancient freedom of control
from without, and she would not reform herself within. The
attitude of Marco Foscarini, who was elected 117th Doge in
1762, was typical of that of the greater number of the Maggiorii,
who were still the only citizens coimted worthy of any voice
in the government of their country. It was typical also of

THE AFTERMATH 355

the mode of thought of Venice generally. As a Procurator of
St. Mark, Foscarini had argued with the Avogador — Alvise
Zeno — concerning the proposals of the Conettori appointed by
the Grand Council in September 1761, to review the regulations
under which all Councils, but particularly the committee of the
Ten and the board of the Inquisitors, worked. The number
of these Correttori had been five in all, and Foscarini himself
was the leader of the conservative majority of three. Zeno
headed the opposition minority of two. Each party had
presented a report to the Grand Council, and it was held by
the three that to the Council of Ten belonged ample authority
to make orders and decrees concerning all grave and criminal
cases affecting the patricians, with the faculty of sending
minor cases to certain magistrates ; and that to the Council
of the Ten with their ancient and necessary government of
three , Heads and the supreme magistrate the Doge, were
confided the highest care and authority regarding the public
tranquillity and the full discipline and restraint of the patrician
order. Only Resolutions of the Great Council, already taken
or to be carried in the future, could alter the orders or Hmit the
power of the Ten, and — as it seems to have been understood —
of the Inquisitors also.

The minority report was longer and less direct than that
of the majority, and under an appearance of enlarging the
powers of the Ten, it considerably curtailed those of the Inquisi-
tors who might inquire into misdoings of the nobles, even if
they held offices and dignities, and might arrest them, but must
immediately present the cases and the culprits to the Council
of the Ten, by whom their imprisonment or other punishment
was to be determined.

When it became known that the five Conettori were not
agreed on their proposals, the excitement in Venice was great.
Anxiety hung like a pall over the capital, and the minds of
the people were darkened and agitated by fears. With the
grace of his nationality, the French Ambassador remarked
to the Doge (Loredano) in this crisis, that as in the lagoons
a thick fog sometimes obscured the beautiful serenity of the
atmosphere for a little time, he would pray that the false
vapours would disperse, and that again there would blaze

356 THE DOGES OF VENICE

in the eyes of Europe the clear rays of the sun resplendent
in this most happy government. The representative of
France was far from being a favourite of the ducal court at
the time, but this compliment won him praise from the Doge
for his great prudence.

The day for the reading of the reports to the Doge and his
Cabinet came at last, and brought with it a surprise for the
many, in the presentation, ostensibly by the Secretary Marini,
but in fact through the devices of Zeno's associate in the
minority report (Troilo Malipiero), of a counter-proposition
which represented that the Conettori had not understood the
commission enjoined on them by decree of the Great Council,
and had arrogated to themselves a power not conferred on them ;
having done on the one hand too much and on the other
nothing at aU, and by that means increased the tumult. To
this counter-proposition was added an amendment that both the
reports should be withdrawn and ten days allowed for the
presentation of new ones corresponding to the will and inten-
tions of the Great Council, and that meanwhile the reports
and the amendment should all be subjected to the sovereign
deliberation of that body.

It was the 17th of January 1762 when at last the reports
and amendment were read in the Chamber of the Great Council ;
the amendment being supported by Paolo Renier, and five
or six others besides Malipiero. As it was obligatory that
eight days should elapse between the announcement of a
resolution and its discussion, the amendment was not voted
on until 24th January, when it was lost by 430 to 127, with
296 non sinceri votes. The victory was to the Conettori, but
Foscarini deemed the time of carnival an inconvenient one
for a discussion so serious as that which had to follow, and
asked for an adjournment. He should have chosen the lesser
evil. In the interval between that date and 7th March,
when at last the great debate took place, the wave of popular
passion rose high ; citizens, especially those of the terra firma,
imagined the dangers to the constitution to be greater than
they were, and foreign traders were hardly persuaded to remain
in such an unsettled city as was Venice during the intervening
weeks.

THE 'AFTERMATH 357

Zeno was the first to speak, and he put on at once the voice
and manners of the complete demagogue. " Liberty ! Liberty ! "
he cried, and railed at the three Correttori who differed from
him, as if they had been traitors of the deepest dye. Their great
offence was the introduction of novelty into their proposition.
They wished, by a new and terrible example, to place the
honour, the substance, the liberty, the life itself of the patrician
order beneath the authority of the Tribunal of the Inquisition,
and to render the whole corp of the nobility slaves of three
men. If asked to define civil liberty, he wojold say it was that
state in which men were governed by the strength of the laws and
the magistracy and not by individual authority and individual
cupidity. In this might be seen the difference between a
Kingdom and a Republic. In a Kingdom one alone commands,
and his will stands in the place of laws, whereas in a Republic
the command is in the laws which all are called to obey. So
far as a free State removes itself from the plurality, so near it
draws to monarchy. To impede this progress the supreme
power of the Great Council had been instituted, and it had been
ordered by the Venetian State that its aristocracy should be
in perpetual transfer from command to subjection. Therefore
had a limit been put in 1618 to the excessive power of the
Council of the Ten, but later on abuses had been introduced
anew and the Grand Council had elected the new Correttori.
There had been a discrepancy of opinion between the Correttori
as to the mode in which they should fulfil their honourable
charge, and whilst the two had devoted themselves only to
the execution of the laws and to the maintenance in force of
the maxims of the Republic, the three, on the other hand —
derogating from the ancient ordinances — had introduced a new
method of justice for the nobility, and had resorted to the
authority of men rather than to the power of the laws. The
issue of this would be greater disorder and more uproar among
the pubhc.

Zeno's oration went on in this style for two days. In con-
clusion, he argued that the proposition of the Two, preserving
the authority of the Council of the Ten and limiting that assumed
by the Inquisitors, left intact the ancient form of the Re-
public ; provided for punishments in proportion to faults ;

358 THE DOGES OF VENICE

and opened sufficient channels for the defence of innocent
citizens. In opposition to this, the proposal of the Three
rendered the Inquisitors independent of the Council of the Ten
and with supreme power. Without any method it overturned all
system, and placed in the obscurity and uncertainty of an
impenetrable rite, the liberty, the goods, the honour and the
life of all those who had until now tranquilly submitted !

No sooner had Zeno sat down, than Foscarini sprang
upon the rostrum, and by the dignity of his person and the
eloquence of his language immediately commanded all ears.
He had followed, so he said, with great attention the arguments
of his adversary, but as the hour was late and all had need
of an interval to take breath in, he proposed the adjournment
of the sitting to the following day, when he reserved the right
of treating of the matter. So on the morrow the dignified
and erudite Procurator recited the history of the Council of
the Ten more precisely and particularly than had Zeno.
Coming to the legal part, he maintained that not in the
proposition of the three, but in that of the two, was novelty
to be found, and these two intended to-day to overturn the
Tribunal of the Inquisitors, preparatory to the suppression
of the Ten at a later time ; worshipping under the name
of liberty, licence and disintegration. The power of the
Inquisitors was founded on usage confirmed throughout
centuries and always held in such respect in Venetian legisla-
tion that to revoke it would be to establish a new peril.
He then had read a number of laws from which resulted,
firstly, that there resided in the Council of the Ten ample
power received from the Great Council to animate and direct
its actions to the sublime end for which it was instituted ;
and, secondly, that from that power was derived the faculty
of delegating matters submitted to it ; a faculty it had exercised
in all times, and which had been recognized by the Great
Council as legitimate. The reasons advanced by Zeno against
the Inquisitors, would prevail equally against the Heads,
without whom the Council of the Ten would be an inert body,
lacking hands or feet. Returning to the proposals of the
Two, he demonstrated the disadvantages and the dangers
that would arise from distinctions between the nobles them-

THE AFTERMATH 359

selves and between them and the subjects. It was the equaUty
of Venetian justice that had always won the affections of the
populace. Foscarini finished his harangue with an anecdote
and a rhapsody, " I cannot expunge from memory," said
he, " that which I read in my youth, of the century we have
now left behind. There came to Venice a Spanish gentleman,
on his way to act as Viceroy in Naples, who had been many
years before at the battle of Lepanto, serving in the
auxiUary fleet of Spain. It appeared that he had known
with some intimacy that great man Sebastiano Veniero, who
was the terror of the Greeks, and whose habit it was in the
eastern islands to go about attended by a hundred and more
nobles dependent on his command. Arrived in Naples, the
Viceroy was asked what object of all that he had seen in our
city seemed to him the thing most worthy of admiration—
whether the Church or the Piazza of St. Mark ; the staircase
or the pictures ; or the fine industry of glass-making or other
similar rarities. ' None of aU those things struck my imagina-
tion particularly,' said the Viceroy. ' The unique marvel for
me was to see Sebastiano Veniero standing in the new pro-
curatory as a plaintive, and to behold a base Greek who had
served in the fleet in the wartime, pass before him without
even raising his cap.' "

Such was the anecdote. There followed the rhapsody.
" Oh, blessed city ! Oh, divine laws that prevail to enable
the exerciser of a nearly sovereign authority in oversea
government and the signorial representative accustomed to
the luxury of Courts, not to be spoilt for the moderations of
civil life ! And these are the moderations in which the nobles
of our land are held by the laws and the vigilant Tribunal ! "

From his flight into rhetoric Foscarini returned to succinct
argument. In the first meetings of the Five, botk Zeno and
MaJipiero had complained with some exaggeration of the
defects, the arbitrary methods and the cruel procedures of
the Ten and the Inquisitors. These impeachments Foscarini
now answered with the statement that the fear of the abuses
of the Inquisitors, exaggerated by Zeno, ceased when it was
considered that their authority extended only for a year,
and that each of them could be removed with the greatest

36o THE DOGES OF VENICE

facility at every revision by the Great Council. Moreover,
they had no control over the exchequer or the military, but
had to ask for the use of either funds or forces from time to
time. The office the three Conettori were willing to allow
them of investigation and reference, would be useless. Both
prestige and secrecy would be lost. The name of the
Inquisitors of State was famous in all the Courts of Europe,
and the reverence they exacted made the Republic securer
from sudden invasion, it being the general opinion that the
Tribunal saw all and knew all. Other Republics had not
survived because of the lack of that force, active and secret,
that only the mind of Venice had known how to place thus
opportunely and without fear of danger, in: an angle of its
aristocracy.

When the propositions and the amendment were finally
voted, the report of the Three was passed by a small majority.
Though small, it was held to be enough, and the moderate
triumph of Foscarini within the palace was compensated
for by the acclamations that greeted him without. The
people approved the view that the Ten with the Inquisitors
were true holders of the balances of justice and stout barriers
against presumptions of the aristocrats and encroachments
on the public liberty. Before the palace of the Foscarini,
fireworks were let off and serenades sung. The leaders who
had upheld him were similarly complimented. But there
was a rush of the mob to set fire to the houses of Zeno and
del Renier, which was only stayed in time to prevent damage,
by the restraining, sudden hand of the very Inquisitors both
Zeno and del Renier had so harshly stigmatized.

A year later, Marco Foscarini ascended the throne. His
Promissione laid upon him the special necessity of being
vigilant and punctual in the accomplishment of the ducal
part in public deliberations, and of exercising particular care
in economic, military and commercial matters, above all
when they appertained to the Lagoons ; " because," as was
said in the preamble, " laws however high in themselves will
languish and become ineffectual if not rendered operative
by the executory hand." Furthermore, it was provided that
the Doge was to make his monthly visits to the Arsenal more

THE AFTERMATH 361

*

businesslike, and to observe the laws regarding pomp and
luxury. At eighty-seven years of age, Foscarini could not
be expected to be particularly sharp in inspection or specially
active and discerning in military and pecuniary matters.
He was only a few days over a year on the throne and, as
was inevitable with Doges of his age, he could not win such
laurels in the higher office as he had gained in lower ones.
His fame, however, is not all official. He was an historian
and a man of learning. From the title of one work alone, a
lecture in the Academy at Bologna — " On the necessity of
history for training men for the direction of the Republic," we may
learn much of his political views and discern something of his
personal character. As has been shown, he made history
the basis of all his plans and hopes for Venice. He encouraged
the Venetians, as a nation, to gaze long and fondly at their
reflections in the past. Yet so gazing and so admiring,
Venice fell into deep waters, from which she never emerged
alive in all her parts.

Peering first into the past and then into a future
which he foresaw as calamitous. Doge Marco Foscarini
said : " This century will he terrible for our children and grand-
children." Generous-souled and free-handed, he died so much
in debt that it was with difficulty his widow persuaded his
clamorous creditors to allow his funeral procession to leave
the palace. The Shylocks of Venice in this era were not all of
Jewish blood. The dead body of a Doge had been a better
security for payment than a pound of ordinary merchant's
flesh.

" My poor servants," were the last words in private of
this Doge of tender heart and good intention. He had probably
little idea of the extent of his debts, but he knew he left no
provision for those dependent on him. His wife — Isabella
Comaro — was doubtless separately dowered. His speeches at
his coronation, first in the Church of St. Mark, and then from
the Scala dei Giganti, were his last public utterances of import-
ance. They are wordy harangues that flow easily, but which
express little more than the ordinary ducal promises of being
a father to his people.

Marco Foscarini's successor, the 4th Alvise Mocenigo to

362 THE DOGES OF VENICE

become a Doge, was elected on 19th April 1763, and on the
22nd of the month his Dogaressa made a state entry into the
palace, with grand attire and retinue, without the corno, but
having lappets disposed somewhat in the form of a biretta, and
wearing the long white veil. Fetes and masques were the rule
of this last reign but two. The governing nobles fiddled and
the people danced while Venice burned. The attention of the
populace had to be turned ffom signs of the coming downfall.
Venice was the city of pleasure pre-eminent. Loyalty to their
order and devotion to their country as a sovereign state,
were still the highest virtues in the eyes of the Ten and the
Inquisitors. There was little inquiry into the private morals
and manners of citizens. Vice flaunted on the islands and
gaming lured there the idle of many countries. Venice was
truly a city of romance, and its waters the pathways of the
voluptuous. Yet as much as the licentious, the commercial
spirit hastened on her doom. All countries with merchant
fleets at sea, paid toll to, rather than took vengeance on the
pirate-kings of Algeria. Even the government of the United
States, where " all men " were just about to be " bom free
and equal," made itself the slave of the Corsairs by pajdng
them blackmail. But Venice was particularly deferential,
and certainly got returns for her deference. Stich advantages
are not lasting. With Tripoli, Tunis and Morocco, more legit-
imate trading treaties were formed, and business was extended
in all directions. But these activities were inevitable under the
general conditions of the age, and too largely the outcome of a
merely temporizing policy, to aid the salvation of the State.
Venice did not seek her developments actively. They were forced
upon her by the changing times. The reign of the 4th Alvise
Mocenigo has been called a reign of reform. It is true that
the close corporations of the Arts, which had existed since the
Roman times, were done away with; that the Jesuits were
finally expelled from the Dogado ; and that the reform of the
university of Padua, initiated by Marco Foscarini in 1741, was
carried out in Mocenigo's time. But then it must be remem-
bered, other nations had for long allowed free practice of arts
and industries, and had in consequence attained to a greater
prosperity than Venice then enjoyed. Other nations, notably

THE AFTERMATH 363

Spain, had driven out the Jesuits, before their incursion from
/ Spain to Italy prompted Venice to the decided step. Other
nations had been reforming their universities, which were to
increase and develop, while that of Padua, in comparison
with the growth of others, steadily declined.

m

CHAPTERj XX
THE NIGHT OF DOOM

A.D. 1779 TO 1797

OF Paolo Renier it was written by the nineteenth-
century biographer of Ludovico Manin (Sarfatti), that
he assumed the eminent office too late to accomplish
the miraculous. He was, however, animated by the ancient
spirit of patriotism, and he did try to redeem men's minds
from personal and party controversies.

" A State that governs itself badly, invites foreigners
to govern it," was a dictum of his there is no gainsajdng.
He emitted further undeniable truths when he remarked
that if ever a State had need of concord it was Venice, since
she had neither possessions, nor a navy, nor allies, and was
only maintained in the little strength remaining to her, thanks
to propitious circumstances and to the reputation for prudence
which the Venetian Government had won.

It was, however, the actual prudence of the Government —
hesitating to strike, careful not to give offence, and fearful of in-
novation — which facilitated the ultimate collapse which Marco
Foscarini first, and Paolo Renier in his turn, most nervously
apprehended. It may be said, too, that the very balance
of Renier's mind, his extraordinary moderation as a Doge,
and peculiar versatility as a man, as well as other less admir-
able traits in his character, hastened the downfall he desired
to provide against. He had not aways been upon the cautious
side. Senator, censor, privy councillor, Savio of the Council,
Ambassador at Vienna and Bailiff at Constantinople, were
some of the offices he had filled with distinction, and so in-
gratiating had he been at Vienna, having a courtly manner,

364

THE NIGHT OF DOOM 365

a sound judgment and a worldly soul, that Joseph 11
desired to have his company when, as Crown Prince, he made
a state tour of the Austrian provinces. For good reasons the
Senate objected to their Ambassador ranking d, la suite of eN
foreign prince, and it is not likely that Renier himself inclined
to an intimate association with the Austrian Royal House.
He had decided opinions as to the relative values of monarchical
and republican methods and manners, and gave his approval
to ways republican as he understood them. Nevertheless,
he had a high estimation of his own dignity as Head of the State,
and on that account was a Doge who constantly cited his own
aims and accomplishments as those by which his subjects
should take example.

His most notable action before coming to the throne had
been that of supporting the amendment to the propositions of
the Three and the Two Correttori. He had spoken for five
hours with an eloquence and feeling that had excited general
admiration, albeit his vehemence and his unconventional forms
of expression had been regarded as offences against good taste.
His contentions had certainly excited much opposition, and
it had been said that he took the extreme stand in order to
force the election of himself as a sixth Conettore and to impede
the correctors from doing anything. But Renier had held
the view that the elected five had not been authorized to
make new laws and regulations, only to facilitate a proper
obedience to old ones, and all his knowledge and wonderful
facility of utterance had been employed to combat propositions
which he qualified as useless and mischievous, because the
remedies they suggested for the evils would have only an
enervating effect on the ancient system.

Paolo Renier, with Marco Foscarini and Alvise Zeno,
had been a rigid opponent of novelty, but his views had
in them more of the pristine liberality of Venetian ideas
than had those advanced by either group of the Correttori.
It was the plan of the Three which he attacked with the
greater violence. By this plan, so Renier said, there would
be created a restricted oligarchy destructive of the very
foundations of their illustrious aristocracy ; liberty would be
overthrown, and the many subjected to the dominion of the

366 THE DOGES OF VENICE

few. What was required, was to abandon both the one and
the other proposition, and without either writings or dis-
sertations to revive the ancient usage. The only salvation
was in the mute observation of those most prudent institu-
tions which had for many years been disregarded and
neglected. So far so good, but the modern mind loses itself
in the cross-currents of Venetian republicanism when it
ponders del Renier's' statements that " the mystery of some
operations conjoined to the security of justice, has maintained
till now the health of the body in command, the obedience
of the subjects and the esteem of strangers, but the utility of
the effects wiU perish in a flash as soon as the mystery is
dispelled. The secrets (arcani) of the Government," he con-
tinued, " resemble that perpetual light which the ancients
placed in their sepulchres and which burned so long as the
tombs were closed, but went out as soon as they were opened.
To obtain the effect, there need not be innovations ; the
execution of the existing laws will suffice. ..." Then
lamenting the decadence of the times, Renier burst out with :
" But in this century what trust can be put in men of
ambition, subject to every human passion and educated in
the prejudices of corrupt morals ? What security for public
liberty can there be among citizens placed at wide distances,
some of them raised by the favours of fortune into great
wealth, others plunged into the depths of the most squalid
and deplorable misery ; in such inequality of rank, habits
and possessions, how can one, without the ancient laws,
restrain the ambitions of the powerful, succour those in
necessity or maintain the Republic in safety ? "

There was still opportunity, he claimed, to repress the
violence of those who wished to raise themselves on the ruin
of Venice, but if it were not taken advantage of, there would
follow a time, God knew how soon ! when nothing would be
left to them but to pity themselves uselessly as lost for ever !
He wished to speak plainly. It was the duty of the Great
Council to uncover social sores, invoke the restitution of the
primitive statutes and restore to the Council of the Ten the
authority of which it had allowed itself to be despoiled and
to which the Inquisitors should be only subsidiary. This

THE NIGHT OF DOOM 367

was bold speech, and del Renier showed his consciousness of
its daring by announcing himself willing to close his political
career that day. He had chosen to speak frankly in spite
of the prayers of his friends and of his own love for his son.
This son who was also charged with the honour of serving
his country, might be denied, because of his father's harangue,
all help and adherence of his relatives and friends, but at
least he would have left to him — as his father had had before
him — a sacred legacy of love for his country and zeal for
liberty. Then, after recalling a recent sentence of the Council
of the Ten from which the whole of the machinery of Govern-
ment had received such a shock that the members of the
Great Council had manifested their resentment of the
Inquisitors' influence in the matter, by refusing to vote, and
thus rendering null four successive attempts to elect a new
body, Renier closed with the proposition that the only way to
remove the cause of dissidence lay in the Great Council being
above and not under the Inquisitors, who would thereby be
constrained to proceed with more respect and circumspection.
This was indeed the speech of a patriot, yet, as we know,
it was the Three of Marco Foscarini's leading who carried
the day. The time of Paolo Renier was to come. He was
then about sixty years old. In the eight years that passed
before he came to the throne, in 1779, he may have learned
wisdom ; he certainly became — if he had not been so before
— adept in guile. All the veniality he complained of at
sixty, he made use of at sixty-eight. The manipulation of
the voting processes was still practised and with aggravations
of the evUs ; for now the votes of poor nobles, called barnabotti,
of whom Renier had spoken in his early harangue, were to
be bought at stated prices, and Renier purchased freely of
these suffrages to gain his election as Doge. In doing this
he only availed himself of a corrupt custom which could not
be despised so long as it was not reformed ; but suspicions of
dishonesty were entertained against him in other respects,
and if these were grounded, it is permissible to believe that his
time in Constantinople had been a demoralizing one for him in
more ways than one. He had the character of being avaricious,
but the provision of a fund to ensiure his election may have

368 THE DOGES OF VENICE

tempted him. In any case, it was said that he had known
how to turn the war between the Turks and Russians to his
own personal advantage, and that he was generally un-
scrupulous in procuring his own advance to grandeur. There
was another thing that happened in Constantinople, which
cast a shadow on his reputation and made all good folk who
delight in scandal quite ready to believe bad of him in all
respects. In Constantinople he met the woman — ballerina
da corda some called her, others have denied that she was a
dancer at aU — whom he took, on his return to Venice, for
his second wife. His first consort, Giustina, of the patrician
family of Dona, had been the mother of the son of whose
career Paolo Renier had risked the sacrifice when he ventured
to speak plainly to the Great Council.

Margharita Dalmaz may perhaps claim this testimony
to her power, that it triumphed over the ambition of Paolo
Renier and excited in him a cupidity that had else been kept
in check by his better sense and higher aims. But it need
not be believed that she was a bad woman, in the common
meaning of the words . On the contrary, aU records of her testify
to her complete devotion to her lord and to a great dignity of
manner and a certain perception of the nobility of justice, truth
and love. The descendants of Paolo Renier preserved for
some generations a pretty tradition of Margharita's virtue and
that of her relation to the Doge. They maintained that she
was not a ballerina, but that as a poor child of Greek parentage
in a Catholic School visited by the Ambassador in Constanti-
nople, Renier had been attracted by her, and thinking to
provide for her future — possibly also to rescue her from the
probable fate of a Greek girl-orphan in a Turkish country —
he brought her back with him to Venice and put her into an
educational establishment there. When the child grew to a
maiden, it was noticed that she was always melancholy, and
her protector, thinking she needed change, sent her to Padua.
Visiting her there one day, to gain a report of her improve-
ment, he was made aware of her deep love for him. Though
about sixty-five years old, he was still assai bell'uomo. He
married Margharita and loved her passionately. Never,
however, could be obtain the permission he constantly sought,

j THE NIGHT OF DOOM 369

to inscribe the marriage in the Libra d'Oro of the family
alliances of the nobles of Venice.

That is the tale told by Paolo Renier's own descendants,
but Molmenti argues that it is neither proved by documents
nor borne out by contemporary opinion. One would think,
however, that a family tradition, formed in less time than a
century, and desqending from children who could not have
been disposed to defend their low-born stepmother, would be
at least as believable as the writings of persons in political
opposition to Renier, or as the chit-chat of the scandal-
mongers of his day. It is true that the closing of the Libra
d'Oro to a register of the marriage seems unexplained by
the family saga, but the Signory was much troubled at the
time by unworthy marriages of many sprigs of nobility,
and could not allow an example of mesalliance in their Doge.
Moreover, Renier had committed the unpardonable offence
of keeping his marriage secret for a time.

Dancer or no dancer, the " Dogaressa " (for so she was
called, although formally the title was withheld and her
place at public functions always taken by a niece of her husband)
showed herself seriously appreciative of her new position and,
in 1786, she won respect for her beauty, nobility and austerity
of aspect, from no less a student of the natures of men and
women, than the creator of Faust and Gretchen.

Seated amid a crowd of spectators gathered to the public
trial of the Doge and his wife regarding some question of
^ enfeoffment, Goethe's admiration for the " Dogaressa " of
noble aspect who was in the place of the arraigned, was only
surpassed by his wonder at the high-handed ways of the
Venetians who constrained their " Princess " to appear in her
own palace for examination by both the judges and the public.

Whatever the vices of Paolo Renier, and he certainly had
shortcomings of an unworthy and contradictory kindj he
retained to the end some RepubUcan virtues and he showed
himself under the influence of many of the revolutionary
ideas then coursing from Paris to uttermost parts of the earth.
The spirit of his age and place — a light, exuberant, matter-
worshipping and luxury-loving spirit — had also brooded over
Him. There is very little of St. Mark and of the attitude of
24

370 THE DOGES OF VENICE

mind induced by adoration of St. Mark, in his speeches, and
the osella struck for his coronation did not show him as Doge
kneeling before a figure of the Patron-Evangelist. It dis-
played impiously a female figure representing Abundance,
with two cornucopics emptying on to the earth flowers and ears
of corn, and the words Bonorum autrix — authoress of all good —
above. On the reverse of the coin was the inscription, Paulus
Renierius principis munus, An. I. 1779, which the ingenious
and the dissective considered a sign of his direct intention of
making himself an absolute prince. His elevation achieved,
Renier remained a reformer in intention, but grew more ap-
preciative of the value of permanent institutions and more
confident of the power of the ducal example and experience. He
became, as it were, the Speaker of the Great Council, and gained'
the post through the common sense of his fitness to be arbitrator
and adviser in disputes between legislators. Eighteen years had
passed since he made his great harangue in criticism of the
proposals of the newly appointed CorreMori, when again the
Great Council was occupied with the prescription of the extent
and limits of their functions. The debates concerning the
methods of their appointment and procedure, that took place
in Doge Renier's reign, seemed but to take up the arguments
where the Councillors of the time of Doge Loredano had laid
them down. There were again three proposals to be con-
sidered, which were the outcome of the agitations of two
would-be reformers — Carlo Contarini and Giorgio Pisani —
who desired to have all regulations concerning food prices,
and all questions of popular education, the degeneracy of
the nobles, the overlapping of offices and the state of trade,
inquired into. Again the Council and Signory had been faced
by an awkward amendment from a turbulent opposition,
and in the general embarrassment Renier was appealed to,
to find a way out from a predicament. Aftet many con-
ferences in the private room of the Doge, three propositions
were again issued ; one stood in the ducal name and the
others were made, respectively, by the Councillors stirred up
by Contarini, and by the Heads of the Forty. All three
were submitted to the Great Council. But it was found that
the suggestion of the Forty, which practically gave a free

« 2

THE NIGHT OF DOOM 371

hand to the Correttori to make new regulations and overturn
old ones in nearly all departments of the government during
their term of of&ce, which was to be sixteen months, was
hopelessly out of court. It was agreed, therefore, that the Doge
and the Council should together formulate another proposi-
tion. This being done, the joint proposition eventually read
proved to be only a modification of the first proposal of the
Doge. It recommended that there should be five " Correctors
of the Capitularies of the Magistrates " who should remain
in office for one year, with the charges of revising all regula-
tions concerning foods and the necessaries of life ; of making
the instructions to all governing bodies clearer, and of in-
quiring into the duties of the same, with the number of their
servants and the payment of these, whether by fixed or un-
certain rates ; of suggesting modes of rendering justice quicker
and cheaper, and methods of moderating luxury in living in
all classes, together with a mode and a method of establish-
ing better discipline and better education of the young, especi-
ally the youths of the patrician order, to whom the advant-
ages of religion, good maimers, letters and civil government
should be assured ; and finally to regulate the disorders
caused by constant withdrawals from the Forty of individuals
charged with particular offices of judicature and magistracy.

To these recommendations, of which the Doge was the
author of the chief part, the Great Council added charges to
the Correttori to make a study of their own authority and to
pass their regulations only concerning the matters indicated,
and to the Signory to exercise vigilant care that the Correctors
did not exceed their offices.

After these propositions were read, it was necessary, in
accordance with the law, to allow eight days to pass before
they were put to the vote. Before this could be done, the party
of the " innovators " demanded that the propositions of the
Heads of the Forty, which had been brought forward more
than eight days before, should be put to the vote at once.
This demand by the advanced party for a vote upon the most
reactionary proposal of all, was a trick for delaying, if not for
completely suppressing the voting upon the more liberal
scheme of the Doge and Councillors which was too conciliatory

372 THE DOGES OF VENICE

to please the extremists. The majority, very naturally, ob-
jected to such a trick, and voices all over the Assembly de-
manded a Resolution of Suspension. Contarini and his
followers, however, protested that the Doge had no power
suddenly to propose a Suspension. Whereupon, " to the
admiration of all," the Doge rose to his feet, with his corno
in his hand, and the whole Assembly rose likewise. The
Chief Magistrate then spoke from his Tribunal —

" We cannot sufficiently demonstrate the internal per-
turbation of our mind," began del Renier royally ; "we cannot
sufficiently declare the bitterness to us of these lamentable
circumstances ; we cannot often enough express our grief and
surprise in the knowledge of the re-active and perilous conse-
quences of this situation. . . . You have the finest State in all
Italy if you only know how to conserve it. . . . Fellow-citizens,
remember that we are not in a position of defence, in the fatal
case of an external aggression ; remember also that internal
discords cause the most sanguinary wars." Thus the Doge
went on, speaking, as he said, " freely, without reticence and
without a double aim." What other aim could he have, he
asked, than that of the common good ? And he prayed those
before him to calm themselves, and not to desire imaginary
fortunes, and those innovations which had always been the
rocks on which the ship of the Republic had split.

It was a most brilliant and lengthy speech, and kept the
attention of its hearers riveted to the end. Renier's aim was
to show that while so many dangers menaced the Republic
from without, there was supreme need for quick agreement
within. In the course of his harangue he expressed his detesta-
tion of the "private unions" and "nocturnal conventicles"
which " originated so many discords," and declared that the
impatience of the Signori Capi to bring their Resolution to the
ballot was (if he might speak freely) the result of an agree-
ment made outside the place in which it should properly be
discussed. He concluded his oration with the promise that
he for his part would be ready for a Resolution in eight days
time, and that if the intervening Thursday (probably the
following day), which was the day for the Annual Wedding of
the Adriatic, proved wet, and the National Ceremony had to

THE NIGHT OF DOOM 373

be postponed for a week, he gave his word that he would con-
voke the sovereign power (i.e. the Great Council) for the dis-
cussion of the matter on the earliest possible day thereafter.
In the meantime let them tranquillize themselves and'' show
goodwill one to the other, and thus all co-operating by the
exercise of their individual duties and the practice of the virtues
and precepts of their glorious progenitors, they would preserve
their truly divine and, at one time, reputedly immortal Republic.

The words of the Doge, we read, had a miraculous effect
upon the Assembly, and the party for the prorogation triumphed.
When the great day of discussion came at last, again the Doge
dominated the situation. The hushed expectancy of the
Coimcillors, as, standing, they watched del Renier ascend
the throne, was described by a spectator as solemn, imposing
and worthy of the pencil of a most gifted artist.

In a speech of impassioned exhortation to the Council
to seek only the common good, the Doge declared that to
allow to the Correctors the general powers which the Heads
of the Forty proposed to invest them with, would be to
undo the work of the fourteen centuries 1 of the existence
of the Republic and to open a vast field to vanity, interest
and ambition. Again he took the opportunity to remind
the Coimcil of the insecurity of Venice as a state in Europe.
It was their geographical position, not their force of domina-
tion, that gave them what security they had. It was their
duty to safeguard their Doge, who had the good intention
to regulate the disorders according to the obligation of his
office. And again del Renier besought aU patriots to love
one another and aid one another ; to aid the Republic and
thereby aid thv>mselves !

The torrent of applause which greeted his impassioned
effort, made the passing of his Resolution a foregone conclusion.

A miserable climax to the day's excitement was the dis-
covery that Carlo Contarini, the regenerator of his country's
institutions, had in his hands more voting balls than he was
entitled to. Stem measures were immediately taken by the
Council of the Ten to prevent the discussion of politics in the
cafes and on the piazze of the town. All private political

> An over-calculation.

374 THE DOGES OF VENICE

meetings were prohibited. Pisani had for a time a popular
triumph which Contarini was absolutely debarred frdm.

On the 8th of March (1780) he had been elected Procurator
of St. Mark, and his solemn entry into office took place on the
29th of the month. This was less than three weeks from
the great triumph of the Doge, and we find him, generous and
eloquent as ever, exhorting Pisani to employ the great talents
with which undoubtedly the Lord God had abundantly furnished
him, in the ever greater adornment and development of the
Republic. In doing this, the Procurator would deserve well
of his country, give an efficient example to his sons, and add
to the renown of his most worthy ancestor Domenico, and all
his family.

After the speeches came illuminations and fireworks and a
splendid entertainment in the palace of the Pisani, with music,
dancing and serenades. All seemed bright, joyous and promis-
ing of a happy future. It is true the pictures in the galleries
and other symbols of reform displayed in Pisani's home and
stamped on his cards of invitation, caused some amazement
to his guests. So did the scattered confetti hearing the legend
in French : —

'-'- La science, le bon coeur, I'amour patriotique
Sont ils le fondement de la Republique."

As a reply to, or perhaps only as a comment on these com-
placent festivities, some polizzini were scattered by un-
known hands in the Procurator's saloons. Oggi bordello,
domani castello ; oggi I'ingresso, domani il processo. Dio ti
guardi I

Both castello and processo were not far.

We cannot doubt that the Doge conctirred in, if he did not
devise the punishment soon meted out by the Council of the
Ten and the Inquisitors. Only two days were allowed to
Pisani to parade his new dignity, and then at four o'clock in
the afternoon, the Procurator was called away by a guard of
soldiers, who allowed him just time to say a few words of
comfort to his wife and then escorted him to a gondola in which
he was conveyed to Fusina ; thence on to Padua, Vicenza and
Verona, where he remained for ten years imprisoned in a

THE NIGHT OF DOOM 375

castle. Contarini was banished in another direction. It
was in the fortress at Cattaro, in Montenegro, that this im-
patient agitator ended his days, which were not many after
the time of his failure to defeat the Propositon of Doge Paolo
Renier.

Renier died in his seventy-eighth year, so we need not
wonder at the vigour of his Dogeship in comparison with the
reigns of so many octogenarian and even nonagenarian pre-
decessors. He was undoubtedly a man of greater mark than
many, and had his individual power been less limited, he might
have saved his country from the days of slavery he saw coming
to it. The power by which he moved the Council to vote for
his propositions and to defeat the innovators, was a force that
was aU his own, but he could not do more than unite parties
for a time. There was a wider divergence of ideas to come
and a lesser mind to dominate them. In del Renier's time
there lived, fought and died the last of the Venetian hero-
fighters, Alvise Elmo, who gained many battles over the " bar-
barians " of Tunis and Algeria. He could have done more for
the authority and repute of Venice had he been given more
soldiers to strengthen his hands. But it was not now the day
of great things for Venice. Men's hearts failed them for fear.
They no longer aspired to conquer ; they were only anxious to
retain the little Venice which was all that was now left to them.

And when the Doge Paolo Renier, who in his own place
and according to his own measures of capacity and under-
standing served Venice well and made her name respected
once again in the marts and courts of countries of more ex-
tended dominion; when this reaUy notable, although some-
what parsimonious Doge came to die, Venice, forsooth, could
not stop her maskings, her fetes, her junketings, to mourn her
Prince — the husband of her Adriatic, the wearer of her sacred
Corno. The Shrovetide Carnival was allowed to close in all
the riot and abandon for which Venetian festivals had become
notorious, before his death, followed by a quiet burial in the
Church of the Tolentini, was announced. His hallerina-
wife had been allowed to sell, for her own gain, stands in the
spaces before the Ponte de la Paglia and the Porta de la Carta
for booths for the sale of artistic mementos to tourists and

376 THE DOGES OF VENICE

sightseers. She outlived the Doge, who sacrificed much fame
for her, full eighteen years, and finishedher days in an apartment
of the Palazzo Mocenigo at San Grae, a little distance from the
fine Palazzo Renier, which has since been demolished. A year
before her death, 1817, when fully eighty years old, but bella
ancora, she held at the sacred font a son of one Pietro Dolfin.
It would seem that to the last and on into the French and
Austrian occupations she was regarded in some sort as an ex-
Queen. If the ballerina had been misnamed and misjudged,
she had her revenge at last. In any case, the circumstances of
the alliance of a low-born Greek girl with a Doge of Venice of
true fame, exemplify picturesquely a picturesque period of
Venetian history — a period of decadence, a season of most
gorgeous decay.

When, in May 1782, Pope Pius vi came to Venice, on his
way back to Rome from pajdng a visit of state to the Emperor
Joseph II at Vienna, he was met by Doge Renier and the Sig-
nory near San Giorgio in Alga, and accompanied thence in a
gilded barge to the lodging appointed for him in the monastery
of SS. Giovanni e Paolo. Pompous receptions, with other
more popular fetes and ceremonies, celebrated the coming to
the lagoons of the first Pope since Alexander in gave to
Doge Ziani the ring for his wedding of the Adriatic.

Music played ever a chief part in the pageants of eighteenth-
century Venice, and the singing of a Te Deum by the ducal
choir, accompanied by a full orchestra, was a notable fea,ture
of this one. Besides the sacred concert, there was given on a
grand scale a cantata, II ritorno di Tobia, written by Gaspare
Gozzi, and composed by the choir-master of San Marco, Pas-
quale Galuppi. The expenses of this gala performance were
paid by the Procurator LuDOVico Manin.

The Pope did not go to hear the cantata. His Holiness
received visits, but did not make them. The power of the
Papacy had greatly declined since the time of Alexander in,
but so also had the prestige of Venice diminished, and neither
Doge Renier nor Procurator Manin would look to receive from
Pius VI what the twehth-century Doge had expected as his
due from Alexander in. Moreover, Pius vi had to assert a
sovereignty which none ever thought to deny to the earlier

THE NIGHT OF DOOM 377

Pontiff, even though he came to Venice a fugitive from Imperial
machinations.

" I hear on all sides praise of the choice of his Imperial
Majesty, as Archbishop of Milan," wrote Caterina Dolfin Tron,
only a year after the Pope's return from visiting the Austrian
Emperor. Her letter went on: " I laugh at the difficulties about the
Pope ; we are not in an age when the Popes ruled the Emperors ;
you will see that the Curia will yield to Caesar, and indeed to all
who, strong in their own rights, know how to maintain them."

This shrewd prognostication, from the lips of a notable
" great " and " gay " lady of the time, gives us, in silhouette, a
picture of the hour. But another Emperor than the Austrian
Caesar was to make Venice and Doge Manin tremble ; an
Emperor, who had the same opinion of the Pontiff as had
Caterina Delfin Tron, and against whose designs it would
avail Venice nothing, to oppose her friendship with the Roman
Curia.

When Napoleon Buonaparte fought with Austria in J796,
he was only the conquering General of the French Directoire ;
but he had ready 80,000 men to pour into Venice.

" I will have no more Inquisitors, I will have no more Senate,
I will he an Attila to the State of Venice," said the monster-man
to the Venetian delegates who waited on him at Gratz. This
second Attila mistook the nature of the first one's making of
the State of Venice, but those who heard the terrible words
knew what he meant to do and what he would do. They knew
it alas ! too late.

Of what avail a navy when the enemy was at their land-
gates ? Besides, many of the ships in the Arsenal were un-
ready for sea, and without crews. The army, long disbanded,
had not been raised again, because they thought — poor fossils
of an extinct virility — that, as a disarmed force, their country
had a better chance of peace than it would have as an armed
one. But Attila the Second could not pass the eighteenth-cen-
tury Venetians by, as inconsiderable fugitives on barren lagoon
islands. He wanted their ports, their Arsenal, their public
buildings, their stored art-wealth, their trade and municipal
organizations ; the colonies that still remained to them ; the
vigour and the repute of them, that yet survived. And they

378 THE DQGES OF VENICE

were entrenched' only in their political neutrality and their
geographical position ! The first line of these defences
Napoleon declared to have been deserted when the " Panta-
loons " allowed Austria to occupy Peschiera. Upon the
second, Doge Manin and his Signory were too much alarmed
even to retire, and it was, of course, an immeasurably weaker
defence against Buonaparte's artillery than it had been against
Pepin's arrows and stones.

When the General of the conquering army sent an adjutant
to Venice, to deliver a letter enumerating eight heads of dispute
with the Signory, the Doge rose in respect, both at his coming
and his departure, and the pourparlers went on until Napoleon
signed a peace with the Emperor of Austria, after which he
made no pretence of treating with the Venetians. He com-
manded and they obeyed.

It was no disgrace to a Doge of the Venetians to lift, at
last, his Corno to an Emperor of the French, but it was an
ignominy that Doge Ludovico Manin should have made no
bettfer stand against the Adventurer-General of the French
army ; should have gained no terms and surrendered fearfully ;
should have quaked and quailed, lamented and wept ; and never
once called upon his people to resist, much less to defy. The
Dalmatian troops brought at the eleventh hour to garrison
the city, might have accomplished much with no more than a
citizen-army to support them. One speech of patriotism from
the throne, such as Francesco Foscari or Leonardo Loredano
had, in their times, delivered ; one appeal such as even a Doge
of so late a day as Paolo Renier could have made to the
loyalty and daring of the nobles and the populace ; one word of
anger and defiance might have turned the day. Venice must
still have been incorporated in a greater Empire, but she might
have retained some emblems and volitions of her nationality.
She could have died nobly ; have perished, mistress of herself.

But Ludovico Manin, the Friulian, was not a Doge of the
heroic Venetian mould. He neither fought bloodily nor battled
wordily for an honourable peace. He was afraid to aggravate
Napoleon's rage by summoning the Senate, and when the
Conqueror threatened to reduce his capital by fire and sword, he
could only lament to the ministers, the Savii and Chief of the

THE NIGHT OF DOOM 379

Ten, who nervously huddled about him, " We cannot be sure
of sleeping in our beds this night ! "

Be sure of sleeping in their beds ! Those honourable citizens
of Venice, those men of an aristocratic race, those hardened
seamen, those rash voyagers, those enterprising merchants,
that insouciant, yet audacious, and fiery populace, which had
made Venice great ! What one among them, had their
leader been a Doge indeed, would have eared about their beds,
on that night or on any other night, when the liberties of their
country, with their national pride and their national honour, had
been at stake ? Venice had decayed indeed, but she did not
know the truth as the Doge and his Cabinet knew it. Yet the
people on the Piazza clamoured for arms and shouted Viva
San Marco ! to the very end, and there were still men in the navy
who were not afraid to discharge their shots at French ships
entering their harbour. There were engineers too who had
plans for the defence of the islands and the lidi, which would
have made the lagoon fastnesses all but invulnerable.

At the last meeting of the Great Council, 12th May 1797,
Doge Manin committed himself with tears to the divine will and
moved the resolution to appoint a provisional Government.
Although only 537 patricians out of an enj oined 600 were present,
the vote was taken. Twenty voted against the ducal motion.
" At the moment of going to the vote, some shots were heard,
which created much timidity," wrote Manin in his diary. He
further related that no disorder ensued and that after the
intimations of the Doge, the aristocrats became sufficiently calm
to proceed with the voting. The ducal " intimations " were
that the shots heard constituted a parting salute of the
Dalmatian troops being deported from Venice, as hurriedly
as they had been brought in. The General Buonaparte had
ordered their dismissal. These were " pudding times," and
Ludovico Manin seemed a Doge of pulp.

There was indeed a curious lack of frame and fibre in the
man, and one wonders whether he himself were sensible of the
pathos undoubtedly inherent in a remark he made the same
evening to his servant. As he retired for the night to the safe
shelter of a comfortable bed, he took from his head the linen
cap always worn by the Doges beneath the Corno. " Take

38o THE DOGES OF VENICE

it away, we shall not need it any more," were his words ; sad
ones and ignominious, to be spoken by the I20th ruler of
the ducal line.

Yet we may not greatly blame Ludovico Manin for his lack
of the ancient spirit ; his want of the fire and fury of a Galbaio
or a Gradenigo, of the subtlety and heroic virtues of a Dandolo,
an Orseolo, or a Morosini. He had not desired the ducal office
at the time that it was thrust upon him. With his own hand
it was written : " I had a decided disinclination to this [his
election as Doge], and my wife, who cherished the same sen-
timents, wished me to defend myself. I resisted always,
although with great difftculty, insisting on the principle of age,
which it appeared was not any longer in force ; on the un-
suitabUity of an aggregated family making such an ascent;
objecting that I should be dumb with fright and might bring
ruin upon my entire family." It is probable that Manin's
protests were not quite so strong at the time as he afterwards
imagined them to have been. He felt the need of justifying,
or at least of excusing, his pusillanimity. Be that as it may,
there must have been something about the man, in addition to
his wealth, that made him the choice of his peers. He had not
the right of age, and the fact that his family had only been
admitted to the Grand Council in 1651 upon payment of
100,000 ducats, should have told against him. But, however,
dumb with fright, and alien from the Venetian confidence
because of his Friulian descent, Ludovico Manin was un-
doubtedly a man of virtue and good desires. In his own way,
he loved Venice dearly. He could mourn and weep for her.
He could not fight and die for her. His own record of his days
upon the throne is punctuated liberally with notes of the tears he
shed. With tears in his eyes, he implored the Forty not to elect
him. Bathed in tears, he wrote a letter to his brother announcing
the fact and manner of his election. At lunch with his fellow-
Councillors on the day of the voting, his agitation was so great
he had to rise from the table and recline on a couch. There
were later times, too, of shedding tears. He had a presage of
the end of his administration. He assumed the Corno already
all but convinced that he would be the last man to wear it.

Nevertheless, the_^time-honoured fetes, with most resplen-

THE NIGHT OF DOOM 381

dent processions and religious ceremonies of great dignity,
celebrated his coronation and made the coming to the palace
of his Dogaressa jubilant. To this disaffected Princess was
accorded, when in 1797 — nine years later — she came to die,
a ceremonious lying in state in St. Mark's, with sixty torches
and four hundred candles burning about her ducally apparelled
form. She did not live, as her afflicted husband did, to see
that day of Pentecost (3rd June 1797) on which the " Tree of
Liberty " was planted on the Piazza, in the presence of the
new municipal Government, and of many French and ItaUan
troops and generals, with a great array of cannon. From
the Piazza on that day went forth the first French patrols
that scoured the city, and on that sacred pavement, in the
midst of all the foreign throng, the conquerors burned the
ducal insignia, piece by piece — the Mantle, the Robe, the Corno
and the Biretta yielded on demand by the ex-Doge. They
burned, too, the Libro d'Oro, and finished the whole ceremony,
as so many another had been concluded in that place, with the
singing of the Te Deum in the Church of St. Mark. The ducal
vicar led the psahn, as Ludovico Manin noted in his diary.

And where was the ex-Doge? He had been wise in his
generation. He had prepared for himself a comfortable home,
to which he went with his two nephews, when the new municipal
Government was substituted for the old ducal and aristo-
cratic one. Of this Government, ex-Doge Manin, to his credit,
refused to take the presidency. He accepted its existence
only with resignation. By his wiU he left 100,000 ducats
to that department of the Government which should have
the administration of pious places. Because of the misery
of his country, he wished to be buried with the least pomp
possible.

The special ceremonies, which might be thought to be the
appurtenances of an ex-Doge, were to be omitted, in order that
the bitterness of their changed fate might not be brought
too nearly home to the Venetians. To stop vulgar comments,
and in substitution of expensive trappings and rites of woe,
clothes were to be given to the poor, and money spent in
portioning yoimg girls of Venice and of another place where
Manin had property, for married or conventual life. So did

382 THE DOGES OF VENICE

the ex-Doge end his days most piously — a mourner still for
Venice. The concluding paragraph of his last will and testa-
ment shows him in a religious and a most amiable light : —

" I recommend with all fervour to my dear nephews to
respect and honour their worthy mother, and to preserve
brotherly union. Let them procure that our House continue
also under the new Government of which by Divine, inscrutable
dispositions, we have become subjects ; continue, I say, in that
honest repute which by the grace of the Highest has been
always sustained by our brothers. Responsive to the Divine
and human laws, be benevolent according to the means the
Lord God has given you ; and charge a portion of your
revenues with the relief of the truly poor. In this way
behave yourselves worthily of the Divine grace and assistance,
which ought to be your principal aim, and deserve also the
approbation and kindliness of sensible men, which is the
greatest enjoyment that honest persons can or ought to desire
in this world."

Had Ludovico Manin not been overweighted by the Doge-
ship, he might have left an honourable record as an honest
public servant. Unlike Pauluccio Anafesto, the first Doge of
Venice, Manin was far from being the man for his hour. Yet
if there had to come a time when there should be no longer
Doges of Venice, it was perhaps better that the one to be
despoiled should have suffered his fate only miserably, and
not fought against it with the desperation and the determina-
tion of a proud Prince and reckless patriot.

With the downfall of Venetian independence fell the Doge
who, for nearly eleven hundred years, had been the guarantee
to Venice of her freedom from foreign domination. Now he
had gone and Venice too. Eleven hundred years is a long,
long time.

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INDEX

Accademia, Venice, 273

Acre, 69, 70, no

Adelheid, Empress-Dowager of Ger-

, many, 37, 40
Adria, Sea of. See Adriatic
AdriaJi IV, Pope, 73
Adriatic, The, called the Gulf of

Venice, 15, 115 ; the Wedding of

the, 46, 82, 112, 372, 376
Aeilbole, or Albiola, 13, 30, 31
Alexander iii. Pope, in Venice, 81-

83. 180, 376
Alexander v. Pope, 201
Alexander vi. Pope, 238, 276
Alexander viii. Pope, 342
Alexandria, The Sultan of, 181
Alexios, Emperor, brother of the

Emperor Isaac, 88, 89
Alexios (2), son of Isaac, 88-90
Alexis I, Emperor, 59
Alfonso, King of Sicily, 140
Altino or Altinum, i, 79, 80
Alviano, d', General, 243, 244, 247
America, discovery of, 243
Anafesto, Pauluccio, first Doge, 2,

8, 15, 51, 382
Ancona, war with, 115, 116
Andrea, King of Hungary, iig
Andronicus 11, Emperor, 140, 143
Anne, Queen of England, 350, 354
Anne of Denmark, Queen Consort of

England, 292-294
Antenori, Beato degu, Joint-Doge

with his brother Obelerio, 8, 9,

180 ; styled Hypatos, 11 ; and the

defence of Malamocco, 12-15 ', lus

fate, 16
Antenori, Obelerio degli. Doge,

7-15 ; said to have married a

daughter of Charlemagne, 7, 8, 34 ;

styled Spatharios, 11 ; his fate,

12, 15, 21
Antenori, Valentino degli, as-
sociated with his brothers Obelerio

and Beato as Doge, 11, 12
Antioch, The Prince of, 73
ApuUa, The Duke of, 55
Aquileia, i, 31 ; see and patriarch

of. 19, 26, 32, 73, 74, 96, 171, 203,

258

Archipelago, Duke of the, 175, 192

Armada, Spanish, 273

Arsenal, The, Venice, 64, 130 ; the

Lions of the, 344
Arundel and Surrey, Alethea,

Countess of, 293, 295-305
Arundel and Surrey, Earl of, 295,

298
Asolo, I

Astolphus, King of the Lombards, 5
Athens taken by the Venetians, 343,

344
Attila, King of the Huns, i, 2,

377
Aurora Borealis, 28

Badoer, a conspirator, 129, 131

Badoer, Albano, 208

Badoeri. See Partecipazio

Baldwin, son of Godfrey of Bou-
logne, afterwards King of Jeru-
salem, 63, 66, 67, 69-72

Baldwin 11, Count of Flanders, after-
wards Emperor of the East, 84, 92,
93, III, 117

Ballotino, The, 142

Barbarigo, Agostino, Doge, 234,

237. 238
Barbarigo, Marco, Doge, 234,

236
Barbaro, Marco, 164, 165
Barbo, 183

Barbo, Pantaleone, 91-93
Barbolano, Pietro, Doge, 52
Bardi, Pandolfi, Count of Verino,

267, 268
Barnabas, St., 20
Baseio, Giacomo, Podesta of Chiog-

gia, 96
Basil 11, Emperor, 42, 43, 48
Basso, Sultana, 281
Bebbe, Tower of, 95, 196
Bedmar, Spanish Ambassador, 289,

290
Belhni, Gian, his portrait of Doge

Loredano, 237
Beltrame, a furrier, 165, 166, 168
Bembo, Giovanni, Doge, 287
Benedetto, Friar, 182, 183
Bentivoglio of Bologna, 268

383

384

THE DOGES OF VENICE

Berengario li, King of Italy, 31, 33, 35
Bernini, Giovanni Lorenzo, 347
Bichir Aga, Turkish Governor of

Santa Maura, 337, 338
Biretta, The Ducal, 15, 174, 182, 226,

381
Black Death, The, 154
Boccolis, Giovanni, 191
Bocconio, Marino, 122, 123, 132
Bohemund, de Brienne, King of

Servia, 107, 128
Bonaventura, father of Pietro, 267
Bonaventura, Antonio, supposititious

son of Bianca Capello, 269
Bonaventura, Bianca. See Capello
Bonaventura, Gian Battista, uncle

of Pietro, 267
Bonaventura, Pellegrina, daughter of

Bianca Capello, married to Benti-
^, vogUo, 268, 269
Bonaventura, Pietro, married to

Bianca Capello, 266-268, 270
Boniface, Marquis of Montferrato,

88, 89, 92, 93
Borbolani family, their feud with the

Polani, 24
Borghese, Cardinal, afterwards Pope

Paul v, 281, 282
Borgia, Cesare, Duke of Valentino,

239. 240
Borgia, Roderigo, Pope, Alexan-
der VI, 238
Bosio, Casa, 107
Bragadino, Gian Battista, 289
Bridge of Sighs, The, 227
Brondolo, 4, 11, 27
Browning, Robert, his Sordello,

quoted, 104
Brutus, 316
Bucintoro, The, 15, 46, 142, 161, 170,

175, 189, 216, 217, 233, 275, 336
Bulls. See Papal
Buonaparte, Napoleon, and Venice,

377-381
Byron, Lord, his Marino Faliero,

159, 160

Caesar, 316

Calendario, Filippo, sculptor, 165,

166
Calixtus II, Pope, 65, 66
Calle dei Fabbri, 129
Caloprini, Domenico, Bishop of

Torcello, 25, 26
Caloprini, Stefano, 40
Caloprini family feud with the

Morosini, 40, 41
Cambray, The League of, 238, 240,

241, 246, 251, 258
Campanile, Venice, 38, 113, 144
Canale, Guido da, 109, 128, 136

Candia, 176 ; siege of, 321-330

Candiano, Giovanna, Dogaressa, wife
of Pietro iv, 34, 35

Candiano, Gualdrada, Dogaressa,
second wife of Pietro iv, daughter
of Hubert of Tuscany, 35-39

Candiano, Pietro i. Doge, 29, 65

Candiano, Pibtro ii. Doge, 32, 33

Candiano, Pietro hi. Doge, 32-34

Candiano, Pietro iv. Doge, son of
Pietro III, 33-38

Candiano, Stefano, 25

Candiano, Vitale (i). Doge, brother
of Pietro iv, 32, 40

Candiano, Vitale (2), son of Pietro iv,
Archbishop of Grado, 34, 35, 37

Capello, Bartolommeo, 267

Capello, Bianca, daughter of Bar-
tolommeo, afterwards wife of
Pietro Bonaventura, and of Fran-
cesco de Medici, 266-272

Capello, Pellegrina, wife of Barto-
lommeo, born Morosini, 266-268

Capello, Vettore, 232

Cardinals, Venetian, 181

Cardona, Spanish captain, 247

Carita, Monasterio de la, Venice, 81

Carlovitz, The Peace of, 349

Carmagnola, Condottiere, 209-214

Caro, Francesco, quoted, 348

Caroso, Pietro, Doge, 21

Carrara, Francesco i, of Padua, 169,
171, 182, 183, 185, 194, 195

Carrara, Francesco 11, " Novello,"
son of Francesco i, 194-199

Carrara, Francesco iii, son of Fran-
cesco II, 198, 199, 215

Carrara, Jacopo (i), of Padua, married
to Anna Gradenigo, 145

Carrara, Jacopo {2), son of Fran-
cesco Novello, 197-199

Carrara, Marsilio (i), nephew of
Jacopo (i), 145, 148, 149

Carrara, Marsilio (2), 183

Carrara, Taddea, daughter of Jacopo
(i), married to Mastino della
Scala, 145

Carrara, Uberto, 145, 148, 149

Cassiodorus the Goth, i, 2

Cassius, 316

Castello. See Olivolo

Caterina (Cornaro), Queen of Cyprus,

234
Catherine of Egypt, St., 119
Catherine de Medici, Queen Mother

of France, 259
Celsi, Lorenzo, Doge, son of Marco,

ambassador to the Emperor, 172 ;

account of as Doge, 173-177 ;

adds a crucifix to the biretta, 174,

182, 231 ; his horses, 174, 194

INDEX

385

Celsi, Marco, 173
Cervantes, Michele, 261
Cesareo, Secretary, 295
Charlemagne, 6, 7, 9, ii, 17, 80
Charles iv, Emperor of Germany,

formerly King of Bohemia, 155,

159, 160, 171
Charles v. Emperor, formerly

Charles I of Spain, 254, 272
Charles vi. Emperor, 351
Charles, son of James i, afteirwards

Charles i of England, 290, 306
Charles vii of France, 238
Charles ix of France, 263
Charles of Anjou, Tyrant of Naples

and Sicily, 116, 117
Charles 11 of Naples, 124
Charles i of Spain. See Charles v.

Emperor
Charobert, King of Hungary, 137,

140
Childeric iii. King of the Franks, 5
Chioggia, 4, 11, 31, 95, 96. 183-189,

191
Christopher, Bishop of Olivolo, 6
Christopher, Patriarch of Grado, 2
CicoGNA, Pasquale, Doge, 273, 274
Clement v. Pope, 124, 135-138
Clement vi. Pope, 152, 153, 157
Clement vii. Pope, 254
Clement vin. Pope, 275-277
Clement ix, Pope, 329, 330
Clement xi. Pope, 349
Clement xiii. Pope, 354
Coinage of Venice, 117, 118, 235
Colonna, Admiral, 260
Columbus, Christopher, 243
Comets, 27, 49
Commachio, 11, 27, 28
Concordia, i, 31

Conrad in, Emperor of Germany, 65
Constantine ix. Emperor, 42, 43
Constantinople, its early relations

with Venice, 2, 4 ; siege of, 90,

91 ; proposed as the capital of the

Venetian Republic, 97-100 ; re-
volution in, no. III
Contarini, Captain of the Fleet, 29
CoNTARiNi, Alvisb, Doge, 322, 335
Contarini, Andrea (i). Doge, 173,

207, 211 ; account of as Doge,

181-189
Contarini, Andrea (2), 211, 212
Contarini, Antonio, 248
Contarini, Carlo, Doge, 323, 370-

374
Contarini, Domenico, Doge, 53,

63
Contarini, Enrico, Bishop of Cas-

tello, 62, 63
Contarini, Federigo, Captain, 213

25

Contarini, GiAcomo, Doge, 115, 116,

129
Contarini, Lucrezia, married to

Jacopo Foscari, 211, 218
Contarini, Nicolo, Doge, 309-311,

318

Contarini, family, 29, 225

Corfu, 55, 56, 67 ; siege of, 351

Cornaro, Captain of the Fleet, 29

Cornaro or Corner, Alvise, son of
Giovanni, 309, 312

Cornaro or Corner, Caterina, Doga-
ressa, wife of Marco, 178-180

Cornaro, Caterina, Queen of Cyprus.
See Caterina

Cornaro, Federigo (l), 248

Cornaro, Federigo (2), Cardinal, son
of Giovanni, 308, 309, 313

Cornaro, Francesco (i), son of Gio-
vanni, 309, 312

Cornaro, Francesco (2), Doge, 323

Cornaro, Giorgio, 314-316

Cornaro, Giovanni (i). Doge, 306-
318

Cornaro, Giovanni (2), Doge, 349

Cornaro, Lorenzo, Admiral, 325

Cornaro, Marcantonio, Dean of St.
Mark, brother of Giovanni (i), 309

Cornaro or Corner, Marco, Doge,
Councillor, 166; Ambassador to
Avignon, 152, 153, 160 ; Ambas-
sador to the Emperor, 160, 172;
imprisoned by the Duke of Austria,
172, 173 ; return to Venice, 175 ;
his plebeian marriage, 178 ; as
Doge, 178-181

Corner. See Cornaro

Como, The, 15, 117; and see Biretta

Corraro, Angelo, afterwards Pope
Gregory xii. See Gregory

Corraro, Antonio, Avogador, 330,

333. 334

Corretiori delta Promissione Ducale,
102, 103, 109, 355-360. 370, 371

Corsairs. See Pirates

Corte Nuova, Battle of, 105

Costanza, Dogaressa, Queen of Cal-
abria, daughter of Tancred of
Sicily, second wife of Hetro Ziani,
97, 98, 103

Crescimir of Croatia, 44

Crete, taken by the Turks, 319-329

Cromwell, Oliver, 333

Cross, The True, 64

Crotta, Claudio, Secretary to Pope
Clement viii, 275

Crusades, 18, 19, 61, 62, 84, 143, 171,
175, 181, 231-233, 259, 260

Cyprus, 233, 234, 259-262, 317 ;
King of, 152, 171 ; Queen of — see
Caterina

386

THE DOGES OF VENICE

Dalmatia, Venetian lordship over,
lo, II, 56, 106, 170

Dalmaz, Margharita, second wife of
Paolo Renier. See Renier

Damascus, The Bang of, 71

Damiani, Pietiro, chronicler, 56-58

Dandoli, their quarrel with the
TiepoU, 112

Dandolo, Captain of the Fleet, 29

Dandolo, a noble, 183

Dandolo, Andrea, Doge, his Annals,
56, 57, 65 ; account of, as Doge,
151-360

Dandolo, Dogaressa, wife of Fran-
cesco, 142, 143

Dandolo, Enrico (i), Archbishop of
OMvolo, 74

Dandolo, Enrico (2), Doge, account

" of as Doge, 84-93 ; referred to,
116, 152, 170, 380

Dandolo, Francesco, Doge, sur-
named Cane, his mission to Avig-
non, 127, 138, 139 ; account of as
Doge, 142-150

Dandolo, Giovanni (i), 112

Dandolo, Giovanni (2), Doge, 115,
119, 168

Dandolo, Giovanni (3), 164

Dandolo, Marco, 216

Delfino, Daniele, Proveditor, 339

Delfino, Giovanni, Doge, 169-173

Demetrius, Despot of the Morea,
brother of the Emperor John
Paleologus, 216, 217

Dircislaus, King of Croatia, 44, 45

Dogaressa, The, 103 ; coronation
and state entry of, 142, 143, 258,
259, 274, 275, 321, 346, 347, 352,
362 ; dress of, 230, 274 ; funeral
of, 236, 277, 278, 381

Dogaresse. See under Ducal names

Doge, Doxe or Duke, The title of a,
2 ; office of, 3 ; income of, 141 ;
deposition of a, 226, 227

Doges, election and enthronement
of. 53. 54. 78. 79. 113, "9. 120,
142, 143, 178, 208, 209, 259, 273,
274, 338, 339 ; funerals of, 112,
133, 140, 141, 229, 277, 278, 381 ;
portraits of, 180

Dolfin or Dolfino, Daniele, 309

Dolfin or Dolfino, Franceschina,
married to the son of Doge Priuli,
288

Dolfin or Dolfino, Pietro, 376

Dominic, St., 108

Donato, a Councillor, 314

Donate, Andrea, brother of Ermolao,
222

Donato, Ermolao, 221, 222

Donato, Francesco, Doge, 257, 258

Donato, Leonaedo, Doge, Ambas-
sador to Spain, 259, 260 ; account
of as Doge, 279-286

Donato, Marco, 129, 130

Donato, Nicolo, Doge, brother of
Leonardo, 286, 287

Donatus, St., 73

Doria, Filippo, Genoese General, 154,
157, 158, 186

Doria, Ottone, Genoese Commander,
140

Doria, Paganino, Genoese Admiral,
158

Durac, a corsair, 325

Durazzo, siege of, 55

Earthquakes, 98, 100, 117, 153, 154
Eccelino, Count, afterwards Duke of

Bavaria, 46
Edward 11 of England, 124, 140
Edward in of England, 143, 151, 175,

177
Elmo, Alvise, 375
Emmanuel, Commeno, Emperor, 75,

76
Emo, PietrO, 195
English Ambassador, The, 276 ; and

see Wotton
Equilo or Jesolo, 3, 4, 12 ; Bishop

of, 25
Erizzo, an Inquisitor, 334
Erizzo, Francesco, Doge, 318-320
Este, Azzo I, Marquis d', 123
Este, Azzo III, Marquis d', 123, 124
Este, Azzo VII, Marquis d', 109
Este, Azzo d', brother of Niccolo,

194. 195
Este, Fresco d', natural son of

Azzo III, 124, 125
Este, Marino d", 27, 28
Este, Niccolo, Marquis d', 194, 195,

197
Este, Obizzo, Marquis d", 154
Este, family of, 144
Eugene, Prince, of Savoy, 352
Excise, riots against the, iii, 112

Fahero, Angelo, Procurator of St.
Mark, 99-101

Faliero, Cristina, wife of Marino (2),
bom Contarini, 162, 163

Faliero, Ludovica, Dogaressa, wife
of Marino (i), bom Gradenigo,
161-163, 168

Faliero, Marino (i). Doge, Podesta
of Treviso, 149; Ambassador to
Avignon, 152, 153 ; Count of
Valmarena, 159 ; account of, as
Doge, 159-166 ; Proveditor at
Zara, 160 ; his conspiracy, 161-
166, 177, 191 ; execution, 166-168

INDEX

387

Faliero, Marino (2), nephew of

Marino (i), x6z, 163
Faliero, Ordelafo, Doge, 64, 65,

69
Faliero, Dogaressa, wife of Ordelafo,

Faliero, Vitale, Doge, 53, 59-61
Famines in Venice, 49, 61, 114, 115,

^ 127, 255

Ferdinand of Aragon, King of Spain,
238, 240, 258

Ferrara, Castle of, 35, 36 ; war with,
64, 106, 124-128, 138 ; Bishop of,
106

Filgari, Pietro, Pope Alexander v.
See Alexander

Fireworks, 339, 340

Flabianico, Domenico, Doge, his
revolt against the Orseoh, 50-53 ;
as Doge, 53 ; alluded to, 56, 78,
iiS

Fortunatus, Bishop of Grado, 7-9,
12, 17

FpscARi, Francesco, Doge, 196,
202, 204, 207, 230, 378 ; account
of, as Doge, 207-228 ; his deposi-
tion and death, 226-229 ; funeral
of, 229

Foscari, Jacopo, son of Francesco,
married to Lucrezia Contarini, 211,
217-224

Foscari, Marco, brother of Fran-
cesco, 227

Foscari, Marina, Dogaressa, wife of
Francesco, bom Nani, 218, 219,
227, 229

Foscari, Paolo, Bishop of Venice,
207, 211

Foscari family, 234

Foscarini, Antonio, Ambassador to
England, accusations against, 292-
305 ; execution, 296 ; said to
have visited Lady Arundel, 302,
303 ; posthumous vindication, 304,

305
Foscarini, Isabella, Dogaressa, wife

of Marco, 361
Foscarini, Marco, Doge, and the

Constitutional Question, 354-366 ;

as Doge, 360-367
Foscarini, Michele, his History of

Affairs Venetian, 333
Francis i of France, 254
Franks, Kingdom of the, 3
Frari, The. See Santa Maria
Frederick 1, " Barbarossa," Em-
peror of Germany, 80-83, 180
Frederick 11, Emperor of Germany,

103-106
Frederick, King of Bohemia, Count

Palatine, 290, 291

Frederick iv. King of Denmark and

Norway, 349
Frederick, King of Sicily, 140
Friuli, its nobles and ecclesiastics

humiliated by the Venetians, 74,

75. "2
Frost, A great, 349

Galbaio, Giovanni, son of Mau-
rizio (1), Doge, 6, 8

Galbaio, Madrizio (1), Doge, 5, 6,
17. 380

Galbaio, Maurizio (2), son of Gio-
vanni, Doge, 6-8

Galileo, 280

Gallipoli, victory of, 202 j

Galuppi, Pasquale, 376

Gama, Vasco da, 243

Gaulo, Galla, of Equilo, Doge, 4

Genoa, relations with Venice, 109,
110, 152 ; independence of the
Empire, 136 ; war with Venice,
138 ; war with, 154, 155, 169, 184

George, St., 150

GhibelUne. See Guelph

Giovanna, Archdiichess, wife of Fran-
cesco de Medici, 268, 269, 270

Giovanna, Queen of Naples, 153

Gisello, foreman at Arsenal, 164, 165

Giudecca, The, 264

Giustinian, Belletto, 137

Giustinian, Captain Giustiniani, 139

Giustinian, Marcantonio, t>oge,

335

Giustinian, Stefano, 134

Giustinian, Taddeo, 185, 188

Glass-making, 140, 359

Gobba, a plot hatched in her house,
182, 183, 194

Godfrey of Boulogne, King of Jeru-
salem, 61-63

Goethe, in Venice, 369

Golden Rose, The, bestowed upon
Sebastiano Veniero, 264; upon
Bianca Capello, 271 ; upon the
Dogaressa Morosina Grimani, 275,
276, 278; upon Doges, 276; upon
Doge Francesco Loredano, 354

Gonzaga, Giovanni Francesco,Marquis
of Mantua, 203, 204, 213

Gonzaga, Luigi of Mantua, 144, 147

Gozzi, Gaspare, 376

Gradenigo, Head of the Ten, 314

Gradenigo, Anna, daughter of the
Doge, married to Jacopo Carrara,
145, X69

Gradenigo, Bartolomeo, Doge, 150,

151
Gradenigo, Giovanni B(i), murders

Pietro Tradonico, 25
Gradenigo, Giovanni (2), 39 _,

388

THE DOGES OF VENICE

Gradbhigo, Giovanni (3), Councillor,
nicknamed "Nasone," 166; as
Doge, 168, 169

Gradenigo, Giovaniai (4), Ambas-
sador to the Emperor, 172, 175.

Gradenigo, Marco (i), Consul at Con-
stantinople, III

Gradenigo, Marco (2), Podesta at
Padua, 145

Gradenigo, Pietro, Doge, 11 9-1 39,
145. 151, 169, 380

Gradenigo, Tommeisina, Dogaressa,
wife of Pietro, born Morosini,
119

Grado, 12, 26, 29, 74

Grado, Patriarch of, 2, 6, 7, 32, 36,
43, 62, 65; and see Christopher
Fortnnatus

Granada, King of, 191

Gregory ill. Pope, 3

Gregory ix, POpe, 124

Gregory xi. Pope, 184

Gregory xil. Pope, 201

Gregory xiii. Pope, 276

Grimani, Antonio, Doge, 249, 250,

259
Grimani, Giovanni, Patriarch of

Aquileia, 258
Grimani, Marino, Doge, 274-277,

279, 281, 286 ; tomb, 278
Grimani, Morosina, Dogaressa, wife

of Marino, born Morisini, 274-276 ;

tomb of, 278
Grimani, Pietro, Ambassador to

England, Doge, 34, 352, 353 ; his

learning, 354 ; his statue, 354 ;

family, 234
Gritti, Andrea, relieves Padua,

244-246, 248 ; as Doge, 74, 251,

257

Gritti, Francesco, son of Andrea,
252. 253 ; family, 234

Guarnerius of Greis, 63

Guelph and Ghibelline, the feud be-
tween, 80, 103, 124-126, 138

Guerino, a monk, 39

Guido, Marquis, son of King Beren-
gario, 33

Gniscard, Robert, 55, 56, 58

Guiscard, Roger, 55

Hay, Mrs., 292, 293
HazUtt's Venetian Republic, 92 n.
Henry ti. Emperor of Germany, 98
Henry iii. Emperor, in Venice, 275
Henry iv, Emperor of Germany, 55,

60
Henry vii. Emperor of Germany,

135-136, 172
Henry vii of England, 238, 246
Henry viii of England, 258

Henry ill of France, 263
Henry iv of France, 273, 286
Henry, Prince, son of Frederick n,

105
Henry, Prince of Wales, son of

James i, 294
Heraclea, 2-4, 52 ; destruction of,

9, 21 ; rebuilt as Civita Nuova,

16
Hodgson, Mr. F. C, quoted, 57, 166,

167
Holy AlUance, 335, 337
Horses, in Venice, 174, 194 ; bronze

horses of St. Mark's, 186, 189
Hubert, Marquis of Tuscany and

Duke of Spoleto, 35, 36
Hungary, war with, 169-172
Huns, their invasion of Italy, i, 30,

31

Hypatos, title of, 3

Ibrahim, Sultan of Turkey, 319-322
Infanta of Spain, The, 306
Innocent m. Pope, 84, 87
Innocent vj. Pope, 171
Innocent ix. Pope, 337, 342
Inquisitori, 102, 103, log, 237
Irene, Duchess of Suabia, daughter

of the Emperor Isaac, 88
Isaac, Emperor, 88, 90
Isabella, Queen of Spain, 240
Isarello, Bertuccio, 164, 165
Isidor, St., 73
Ivan IV, Czar of Muscovy, 259

James i of England, 290-292, 298,

299. 304
James 11, King of Cyprus, marries

Caterina Comaro, 234
Japanese Ambassadors, 275
Jerusalem, 62, 68 ; King of — see

Baldwin
Jesolo. See Equilo
Jesuits, expulsion of the, 285, 362,

363

John viii, Pope, 25

John XXII, Pope, 215

John III, Sobieski, King of Poland,
335, 342

John and Paul, SS., 108

John Calojanni, Emperor, 66, 72

John Cautacugenus, Emperor, 154

John Paleologus, Emperor, 152, 216,
217

Joseph II, Emperor of Austria, 365,
376, 377

Juan or John, Don, of Austria, ad-
mired at Lepanto, 260

Julius II, Pope, 239, 240, 241,
246

Juno, 80

INDEX

389

Kflnigsmark, Garlotta, wife of

General, 340
Kfinigsmark, General, 339, 340 t

Lace-making, 230

Ladislaus vi of Hungary, 246

Lagosta, victory of, 44

Lando, Pietro, Doge, 249, 257, 258

Leo III, Emperor, 3

Leo V, Emperor, 17, 18

Leo VI, Emperor, 31

Leo in. Pope, 7, 9

Leone, Paolo, 197, 198

Leopold, Emperor of Austria, 335

Lepanto, victory of, 260, 262, 359

Library, The, Venice, 258, 273

Libro, d'Oro, 369, 381

Lionello, Secretary to the Senate,
. 299. 303

Lioni, Nicolo, 166

Liutprand, King of the Lombards, 3

Lombard League, 103, 104

Lombards, The, their invasion of
Italy, 1-3, 5, 6

Longhena, Ealdassare, 318

Loredano, Alvise, son of Leonardo, 245

Loredano, Bernardo, son of Leon-
ardo, 245

ILoredano, Francesco, Chief of the
Ten, 218, 219

LoKEDANO, Francesco, Doge, 354,

370
Loredano, Jacopo, 224
Loredano, Leonardo, Doge, 237-

249. 378
Loredano, Lorenzo, son of Leonardo,

249
Loredano,PaoIo, Captain-General, 158
Loredano, Pietro, 208
Loredano, family of, 234
Lothair, Emperor of the West, 21,

23, 32
Louis, Count of Blois, 84
Louis I, King of France, 18
Louis vii. King of France, 65
Louis IX, King of France, 117
Louis XII, King of France, 238, 239,

241, 246
Louis XIV, King of France, 350
Louis the Great, King of Hungary,

153, 160, 169, 171
Louise of Savoy, mother of Francis i,

254
Ludovico, Emperor, 17, 24
Luprio, monastery of the Holy Cross,

84

MachiaveUi, Nicolo, 212

Malamocco, 4, 9, 16, 17 ; defence of,
12, 13 ; old woman of, 13, 14 ; the
devastation of, 21 ; Bishop of, 25

Malatesta, Pandolfo, Lord of Fesaro,

195. 203, 240
Malipieri, The, 123, 234
Malipiero, Giovanna, Dogaressa, wife

of Fasquale, bom Dandolo, 230
Malipiero, Orio, Doge, 75, 79, 84
Malipiero, Pasquale, Doge, 228-

231
Malta, Knights of, 319, 332, 337
Manin, Ludovico, Doge, 376-382
Mantua, war with, 318
Marcello, Nicolo, Doge, 234
Marchesina, Dogaressa. ' See Tiepolo
Maria Theresa, Empress, 354
Marini, Secretary, 356
Mark, St., his body brought to

Venice, ig, 20, 59-60, 61, 73 ;

appears to the fishermen, 150
Marlborough, Duke of, 349
Martel, Charles, 5

Martha, Doge Gritti's serving-
woman, 253
Martin iv. Pope, 116
Marturio, Pietro, Patriarch of Grado,

25. 26
Mary i, Queen of England, 272
Mastalici, The, their conspiracy

against Giovanni Partecipazio, 21
Master of the Soldiers, The, 2, 3, 4
Matilda, Countess of Tuscany, 64
Matthias Corvinus, King of Hungary,

Maximilian, Emperor of Germany,

238, 240, 244-246
Mazarin, Cardinal, 321
Medici, The, 254
Medici, Cosimo de, 215
Medici, Cosimo (i) de, Grand-Duke

of Tuscany, 268
Medici, Cosimo (3) de, Grand-Duke

of Tuscany, 337
Medici, Ferdinando, Cardinal, Grand-
Duke of Tuscany, 272
Medici, Francesco de, Grand-Duke

of Tuscany, son of Cosimo (2),

268-272
Medici, Giulio de (Pope Clement

VII ?), 254
Memmo, Jacopo, Chief of the Forty,

son of Marin, 227
Memmo, Marcantonio, Doge, 278,

287
Memmo, Marin, 227
Memo, Tribuno, Doge, 22, 40, 41
Merceria, The, 130

Michael the Stammerer, Emperor, 18
Michael vni, PaleologuS, Emperor,

III
MicHiELi, DoMENico' (i), Doge, 63-

73. 75 ; styled Terror Graecorum

and Laus Venetorum, 73

390

THE DOGES OF VENICE

Michieli, Domenico (a), son of

Domenico (i), 66
Michieli, Giovanni, son of Vitale,

62. 63, 73
Michieli, Leonardo, son of Vitale (2),

73
Michieli, Lucchino, son of Domenico

(I). 66
Michieli, Niccolo, son of Vitale (2), 75
MicHiELt, Vitale (i). Doge, 61-64
Michieli, Vitale (2), Doge, 73-77,

83
Michieli, Vitale (3),' sent on an em-
bassy to the Emperor Henry, 137
Milan, Duchess of, 195
Mirandola, Duke of, 331
Mocenighi family, 234
MocENiGO, Alvisb (i), Doge, 258-

264, 275 ; his monument, 278
MocENiGO, Alvise (2), Doge, 349
MocENiGo, Alvise (3) Sbbastiano,

Doge, 352
MOCENIGO, Alvise (4), Doge, 361,

362
Mocenigo, Giovanni (i). Councillor,

167
Mocenigo, Giovanni, Doge, brother

of Pietro, 234, 236
Mocenigo, Lazzaro, Captain-General,

323
Mocenigo, Leonardo (i), 213 ; Cap-
tain-General at Candia, 321-323,

327, 331
Mocenigo, Ketro (i), 185
Mocenigo, Pietro (2), Doge, 234,

236
Mocenigo, Fisana, Dogaressa, wife of

Alvise Sebastiano, born Comer,

352, 353
Mocenigo, Taddea, wife of Giovanni,

bom Michiel, 236
Mocenigo, Tommaso, Doge, 202-

207, 209 ; his speech quoted, 204-

207
Mocenigo, Zaccaria, last Doge of

Crete, 329
Mohammed iii. Sultan, 281
Molini, a traitor senator, 182, 183
Molini, Alessandro, Captain-General,

345. 346
MoLiNO, Francesco, Doge, 320-323
Molmenti, his Dogaressa quoted, 369

MONENGARIO, DoMENICO, Doge, 4, 5

Montferrat, Marquis of, 154
Morea, conquest of, 338-345
MoRO, Cristoforo, Doge, 231-234,

248 ; family of, 234
Morosini, Captain of the Fleet, 29
Morosini, a traitor senator, 182, 183
Morosini, historian, 279, 285
Morosini, Dombnico, Doge, 73

Morosini, Francbsco, Doge, styled
" Peloponnesiaco," 323, 343, 380 ;
Captain-General, at Candia, 323-
329 ; negotiates the capitulation
of Crete, 330 ; his trial, 330-335 ;
Captain-Geaieral in the expedition
against the Morea, 335-342, 351 ;
receives the cap of maintenance
from the Pope, 342 ; returns to
the Morea, 344 ; dies in Nauplia,

345 . ^.
Morosini, Giovanm, son-m-law of

Pietro Orseolo, 39, 41
Morosini, Marino, Doge, 103, 108,

214
Morosini, Michele (i), 107
Morosini, Michele (2), Doge, 189,

190
Morosini, Tommasina, Queen of

Hungary, 119
Morosini, Tommaso, Patriarch of

Constantinople, 93
Morosini, Vincenzo, 273
Morosini, the family, feuds with the

Caloprini, 40, 41
Murad, Sultan of Turkey, 281
Muscorno, Secretary to the Fos-

carini, 292-294
Museo Civico, 347

Nani, Antonio, 307, 308

Narentine pirates, war with the, 43-

45
Navagero, Bernardo, chronicler, 15 ;

his oration at Doge Gritti's

funeral, 255
Negropont, lost, 233
Newton, Sir Isaac, 354
Niceno, Cardinal, 233
Nicephorus, Emperor, 17
Nicolas, St., body of, 63, 64, 73 ;

appears to a fisherman, 150
Nicolas, St., the Less, body of, 63

Obelerius, Bishop of Olivolo, 6
Oliviero, servant of Jacopo Foscari,

221, 222
Olivolo, Bishop of, 36, 46, 50; and

see Christopher Oblerius
Orphans, Canal of the, 14
Orseolo, Captain of the Fleet, 29
Orseolo, Felicia, Dogaressa, wife of

Pietro, 38, 41
Orseolo, Giovanni, son of Hetro, his

marriage, 48, 49, 52, 57, 58
Orseolo, Icella, daughter of Pietro,
married to Stephen of Hungary, 45,
50
Orseolo, Maria, Princess, niece of the
Emperor Basil, married to Gio-
vanni Orseolo, 48, 49, 57, 58

INDEX

391

Orsbolo. Orso, Doge and Patriarch,
s&n of Hetro, 52, 53

Orsbolo, Ottone, son of Pietro (2),
Doge, 49-53

Orsbolo, Pibtro i. Doge, revolt
against Pietro Candiano iv, 36 ;
as Doge, 38-49, 109-380

Orsbolo, Pietro ii. Doge, 40, 42-43 •
assumes title of Doge of Venice and
Dalmatia, 45 ; institutes " Wed-
ding of the Adriatic," 46 ; receives
Otto III, 46 ; separates from his
wife, 49

Orsbolo, Vitale, son of Pietro,
Bishop of Torcello, Joint-Doge, 52,
53

Orsini family, 239

Orso, Deodato, Doge, son of Orleo, 4,
30

Orso, Orleo, Doge, 3

Ossuna, Spanish Viceroy of Naples ,288

Otto I, Emperor of Germany, 34, 36-

38,40
Otto III, Emperor of Germany, 43,

46-48
Otto, son of Frederick Barbarossa,

82,83

Padua, I, 4, 31 ; conquered by

Venice, 198, 249
Palace of the Doges. See Palazzo

Ducale
Palatine, The. See Frederick
Palazzo Ducale, 16, 20, 38, 54, 74, 79,

134, 140, 151, 161, 164, 167, 174,

180, 253, 258, 263, 373 ; burnt, 36,

37, 264, 265
Palazzo Mocenigo. 295, 296
Palazzo Morosini, 345
Paleologos, Emperor. See John and

Michael
Palladio, Andrea, 263, 264
Papal Bans, Bulls, Edicts, and Inter-
dicts against Venice, 125-127, 135-

138, 240, 246, 276, 281-286
Partecipazio (or Badoeri), Agnello,

Doge, 16-18, 21, 121
Partecipazio, Badoero, son of Orso,

27, 28
Partecipazio, Felicia (i), Dogaressa,

wife of Giustiniani, 17, 20
Partecipazio, Felicia (2), Dogaressa,

wife of Orso (i), daughter of

Rodoaldo of Bologna, 34
Partecipazio, Giovanni (1), son of

Agnello, Joint-Doge with ms father,

17, 18, 20, 21
Partecipazio, Giovanni (2), Doge,

son of Orso (i), 27-30
Partbcipazio, Giustiniano, Doge,

17, 20

Partecipazio, Orso (i). Doge,

grandson of Agnello, 25-27, 34
Partecipazio, Orso (2), Doge, 32
Partecipazio, Pietro (i). Captain of

the Fleet, 22
Partecipazio, Pietro (2), son of

Orso, 29 ; Doge, 32
Patrasso, Archbishop of, 175
Paul, St., 10, 20; and see John
Paul V, Pope, 281

Pepin le Bref , King of the Franks, 5, 6
Pepin, King of Italy (2), son of

Charlemagne, 6, 9, 11-13, 16, 31
Pesaro, Giovanni, Doge, 314, 323
Petadebo, 146
Peter, St., 19, 20, 83
Peter (Courtenay), Emperor, 98
Peter iv. King of Aragon, 154
Peter the Hermit, 61
Petrarch, in Venice, 155-159, 175-

184, 194 ; quoted, 167, 168, 176, 177
Petronilla, FeUcita, widow of the

Duke of the Arcliipelago, married

to Nicolo Veniero, 192
PhiUp of Austria, 272
PhiUp, Duke of Burgundy, 231
Philip III of France, 116
PhiUp IV of France, 124
Philip VI of France, 143, 151, 152
Philip II of Spain, 259, 272, 273
Philip, Duke of Suabia, King of the

Romans, 88
Piazza, The, 20, 54, 79, 83, 109, 129,

130, 262, 359 ; tournaments on the,

149, 176, 177 ; the Tree of Liberty

planted on, 381
Piazzetta, The, 109, 142, i5i, 174
Piccolomini, Enea, 276
Pietro Lusignano, King of Cyprus,

175. 177
Hg-hunt, The. See FriuU
Pirates and corsairs, 22-24, 2^> ^•

32, 42-45, 266, 319, 362
Pisani, Domenico, 374
Ksani, Giorgio, 370, 374
Pisani, Vittore, Admiral, 154, 185,

187, 189
Pitigliano, Venetian General, 243, 245
Pius li. Pope, 232
Pius III, Pope, 239
Pius V, Pope, 259
Pius VI, Pope, 276
Plague, The, in Venice, 49, 57, 58, 61,

76, 190, 236, 254, 263, 264, 318
Poictiers, battle of, 5
Polani, Nicolo, 325
PoLANi, Pietro, Doge, 73
Polani family, 24, 123
Polenta, Obizza da, of Ravenna, 197,

198
Polignac, Abbfe de, 350

392

THE DOGES OF VENICE

PONTE, NlCOLO DA, Doge, 258, 275.

281 ; as Doge, 265-273 ; his

testament, 272, 273
Ponte dei Crossechieri, 286
Ponte del Malpassq, 129
P/onle delta Paglia, 161
Popes of the Eastern and Western

Church compared, 9
Porta delta Carta, 229
Porta Lungo, 158
Pozzi, The, 134
Primocerio, or Dean of St. Mark's,

The, 20
Priuu, Antonio, Doge, 287, 305
Priuli, Girolamo, Doge, 258
Priuu, Lorenzo, Doge, 258
Priuli, Zilia, Dogaressa, wife of

Lorenzo, bom Dandolo, 258, 259,

274
Prom,iss,iorii of the Doges, 102, 109,

112, 142, 150, 159, 166, 177, 180,

192, 194, 208, 214, 228, 231, 235,

236, 237. 249. 253, 306, 309, 311,

312, 314, 316, 317, 320, 360

Quarantia, or Forty, 120, 121
Querini, Carlo, 127
Querini, Jacopo, 126, 128-130
Querini, Marco, Podesta of Ferrara,

128
Querini, Nicolo, Admiral, 158

Ragusa, 44, 45, 50

Rambaldo, Count of Treves, 46, 47

Ravenna, Council of, 25 ; conquered

by the Venetians, 28
Redentore, The Church of the, 264,

286, 318
Renier, Giustina, wife of Paolo, born

Dona, Dogaressa, 368
Renier, Margharita, second wife of

Paolo, bom Dalmaz, 368, 369, 375,

376
Renier, Paolo, Doge-Councillor,

356, 360 ; as Doge, 364-376, 378
Rhodes, Knights of, 143, 171
Rialto, 6 ; made the capital of

Venice, 16 ; fortified, 30 ; bridge,

131, 273, 274
Richard 11, King of England, 191
Ring of the Doge, 82, 226
Ring of St. Mark, 150
Riva, Jacopo, Proveditor, 323
Rivoalta. See Rialto
Robert, King of Naples, 137
Robert iii. Count of Flanders, 140
Exjbinson, Dr. John, Bishop of

Bristol, 350
Rodoaldo, Duke of Bologna, 34
Rodolph, Duke of Austria, 172, 174,

175

Roger, King of the Two Sicilies, 73,103
Romana, sister of Felicia Parteci-

pazio, 20
Romanin, referred to and quoted, 56,

57, no, 186, 190, 191, 221, 256,

273, 304
Romano, Eccelino da, 104, 105, 147
Romans, King of the, 242
Rome, casts off the dominion of the

Greeks, 5
Rossi, Pietro de, 147, 148
Rosso, Giustina, her mortar casement,

130
Rudolph II, Emperor of Germany,

265, 266
RuzziNi,CARLO,Doge,Plenipotentiary

at Utrecht, 349-352 ; as Doge,

351-353

Sade, Laura de, 154, 184
Sagredo, Giovanni, CavaUere, 333
Sagredo, Nicolo, Doge, 332
Salboro, battle of, 82
Salinguerra, Torelli, Governor of

Ferrara, 106, 107
San Agostinp. 108, 113, 114, 131
San Andrea, island of, 190, 191
San Basso, 130
San Daniele, 108
San Domenigo, Church and Monastery

of. 135
San Francesco di Paolo, 273
San Geminiano, 83, 84, 236
San Giobbe, Church and Monastery

of, 235, 255
San Giorgio, island and church,

41. 73. 198. 199. 285
San Giorgio Maggiore, Monastery,

84, 97, 134, 200 ; Abbot of, 97
SS. ijiovanmi i Paolo, 108, 112, 115,

167, 236, 277, 278, 347, 376
San GiuUano, 130
San Giuseppe di Castello, 278
SS. Ilario 6 Benedetto, Abbey of, 18, 37
San Jacopo, 63

San Lorenzo, Monastery of, 18
San Marco, BasiUca of, 20, 38, 54, 59-

62, 65, 81-83, 85, 86, 109, 113, 141,

142, 176, 189, 278, 359 ; Pillar of,

79 ; Procurator of, 132, 140, 150,

173 ; Lion of, 189
San Marcuola, 41
San Matteo, 129, 131
San Panialeone, 226, 228
San Pietro, in Castello, 6, 21, 40, 43
San Polo, 108, 314
San Servolo, 47
San Severe, 17
San Stefano, 199
San Teodoro, 16, 20, 38, 54 ; Pillar

of, 79

INDEX

393

San Toma, 107

San Zaccaria, Church and Convent
of, 18, 20, 24, 25, 30, 35, 40, 41, 49,

77
Sanitary laws, 255, 343
Sansovinb, 258

Sant' Ilario, Monastery of, 32, 39, 40
Santa Giustina, 102
Santa Maria dei Frari, 229, 236, 289
Santa Maria delta Saltae, 318, 336
Santa Maria Formosa, 108, 286
Santa Martina, 108
Sanudo, Marino, 242, 255
Saracens, The, 22-24, 48
Sarfatti, biographer of Manin, 364
Sarpi, Paolo, Servite Father, 280,

281, 284
Scala, della, or Scaligeri, Alberto, of

Verona, 144, 145
Scala, Brumoro della, 215, 216
Scala, Mastino della, 144-147
Scala dei Gieanti, The, 166, 227, 361
Scaligeri, The, 144, 154 ; and see Scala
Schiavoni, Riva dei, 174, 175
Scutari, 89, 233
Selvo Domenico, Doge, 53-59, 108,

109
Selvo, Theodora, Dogaressa, Grecian

Princess, wife of Domenico, 55-58
Seminario Patriarcale, 149
Serrata del Consiglio, The, 120-122,

132. 134

Sforza, Francesco, Condottiere, after-
wards Duke of Milan, 215, 218, 220,
223, 254

Shakespeare, William, 262

Sicilian Vespers, The, 117

Sigismund, Emperor of Germany,
202, 203, 213, 216

Signori di Notte, 130, 140-143, 222,
223

Sivos, chronicler, 280

Sixtus IV, Pope, 276

Slave Trade, The, 10, 26, 34

Smyrna, defence of, 152, 153

Soranzo, Venetian BaiUfi of Constan-
tinople, 322

Soranzo, Dogaressa, wife of Giovanni,
141

Soranzo, Giovanni, Doge, 124, 127,

137-141 ,
Spineto, Tourney of, 95
Steno, MiCHELE, Doge, his insult to a

lady of Doge FaUero'S family, i6i-

164, 191 J imprisoned, 186 ; in

the expedition against Genoa, 186 ;

as Doge, 192-201 ; and the Avoga-

dori, 193. 194
Stephen, St., bones of, 64
Stephen, King of Hungary, son of

Crescimir, 44, 45. 66, 72

Storms and inundations, 117, 150
StrafEord, Lord, 350

Taglioni, Marcello, Doge, 3
Tancred, King of Sicily, 63, 97
Teck, Louis de, 202, 203
Theobald, Count of Troyes, 84
Theodora, Dogaressa. See Selvo
Theodoric the Great, i
Theodosius, Emperor, 22
Tiepoli, The, their quarrel with the

Dandoli, 112
Tiepolo, Bajamonte or Bohemund,

son of Jacopo, 128-132, 135, 159
Tiepolo, Giacomo (i). Doge, Viceroy

of Constantinople, 98 ; as Doge,

98-103
Tiepolo, Giacomo (2), son of Lorenzo,

115, 118, 119
Tiepolo, Giovanni, Count of Ossero

son of Giacomo (i), 103, io5, 107
Tiepolo, Gualdrada, Dogaressa,

second wife of Giacomo, daughter

of Tancred of Sicily, 103
Tiepolo, Jacopo, son of Lorenzo, 128,

129
Tiepolo, Lorenzo, Doge, son of

Giovanni, 103, 107, 108, 116, 128 ;

as Doge, 112-115
Tiepolo, Marchesina, Dogaressa, wife

of Lorenzo, daughter of Bohemund

of Servia, 107, 113, 114, 119, 128,

142
Tiepolo, Maria, Dogaressa, wife of

Giacomo, born Sterlato, 103
Tiepolo, Nicolo, 139
Tiepolo, Pietro, son of Giacomo (i),

103-106
Tiepolo, Soranza, wife of Nicolo,

daughter of Giovanni Soranzo, 139,

141
Tiepolo conspiracy. The, 256
Tino, Domenico, 54
Tintoretto, Jacopo, 263
Torelli, Salinguerra, 123, 124
Tradonico, Pietro, Doge, '22-25, 32
Trajan, Emperor, 157
Trapani, battle of, iii
Travessera of Ravenna, 106
Trent, Council of, 265
Treviso, 104, 105
Tribunes, 2, 5

Tribuno, Andrea, Doge, 29-31
Tribuno, Angela, mother of Pietro, 30
Tribuno, Pietro, Doge, entitled

Protospatrio, 31
Tripoli, Count of, 70
Tron, Caterina Dolfin, quoted, 377
Tron, Dea, Dogaressa, wife of Nicolo,

born Morosini, 235
Tron, Filippo, son of Nicolo, 238

394

THE DOGES OF VENICE

Tron, NicoLo, Doge, 234-236, 238,

Tron family, 234
Tunis, Sultan of, 140
Turkey, Sultan of, 246, 259
Turkey, war with, 318-346, 351
Tuscany, Grand-Duke of, 277 ; and

see Medici, Cosimo and Francesco
Tyre, siege of, 69-71

Urban vi. Pope, 180, 181

Urban viii. Pope, 308

Vscocchi, pirates, 266

Usunhasan, leader of the Persians,233

Utrecht, Peace of, 349-351

Valier, Beetuccio, Doge, 323 ;
tomb of, 347

Valier, Elisabetta, Dogaressa, wife of
Silvestro, 346-348, 352, 353

Valier, Silvestro, Doge, 346-348,
352 ; tomb of, 347

Vano, Girolamo, 295

Veglia, Count of, 128

Vendramin, Patriarch, 283, 284

Vendramin, Andrea, Doge, 234, 236

Vendramin family, 234

Venedi, origin of the, 1

Venice, beginnings of, I, 2 ; geo-
graphical advantages, i, 10, 11, 15 ;
growth of its Constitution, 2-4, 8,
10. 38, 51-53. 78, 79. loi. 102, 118-
123, 132, 133, 139, 193, 194, 208,
214, 231, 237, 242, 249, 256, 257,
288, 289, 353-360, 365, 366, 370 ;
its allegiance to the Eastern
Empire, 3, 5-7, 22, 45, 143, 216 ;
its finances, 205-207

Veniero, Antonio, Doge, 190-193,
195, 222

Veniero, Luigi, son of Antonio, 191,
192

Veniero, Nicolo, son of Antonio, 192

Veniero, Sebastiano, 258, 264 ; at
Lepanto, 260, 261, 339

Vercellini, Steward to Lady Arundel,

299, 300. 303
Verme, Dal,VeroneseCondottiere, 176
Verme, Victor Dal, son of the Con-

dottiere, 177
Verona, conquered by Venice, 200
Veronese, Paolo, 263
Victor IV, Pope (Schismatic), 81
Vienne, Dauphin of, 152
Villehardouin, Godfrey de, 85-87

Virti, Conte di (Visconti), 181

Visconti of Milan, The, 136, 144, 169

Visconti, Azzo, 147, 148

Visconti, Bianca, illegitimate
daughter of Filippo, married to
Francesco Sforza, 218

Visconti, Filippo-Maria, son of Gio-
vanni Galeazzo, 203-205, 210-213,
215, 218, 229

Visconti, Galeazzo, 198

Visconti, Giovanni, Archbishop of
Milan, 153, 154, 157, 160, 171

Visconti, Matteo, 140

Vittorio, Amadeo, Duke of Savoy and
Sardinia, 349-351

Wends, The, i

William I, The' Conqueror, of Eng-
land, 55

WilUam, King of the Two SiciUes,
son of Roger, 73

Wotton, Henry, English Ambassador,
290-292, 296-304

Yolande, sister of Henry, Emperor
of Germany, widow of Emperor
Peter (Courtenay), 98

Zaccharias, St., body of, 18

Zane, 183

Zara, 16, 18, 26, 29, 42, 44, 86-90,
107, 137, 160 ; Doge of, 10

Zecca, The, 258, 273

Zeno, Captain of the Fleet, 29

Zeno, Alvise, 355, 365

Zeno, Carlo, Admiral, 188, 189, 195,
196, 200

Zeno, Loicia, Dogaressa, wife of
Reniero, born da Prato, 109

Zeno, Pietro, Captain, 136, 152

Zeno, Renier, reformer, 306-318

Zend, Reniero, Doge, 108-112

Ziani, Costanza, Dogaressa, second
wife of Pietro, daughter of Tancred
of Sicily, Queen of Calabria, 97, 98,
103

Ziani, Giorgio, son of Pietro, 96, 97

Ziani, Marco, son of Pietro, 109

Ziani, Maria, Dogaressa, wife of
Pietro, born Baseio, 97

Ziani, Pietro, Doge, son of Sebas-
tiano, 94-103, 108, 109

Ziani, Sebastiano, Doge, 75, 78-
84, 94, 180, 376

ZoRzi, Making, Doge, 134-137, 139

4^

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